


The Deep End of the Pool

by PrairieDawn



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Academy Era, Bad Weather, Flashbacks, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, I Tried, Major Fake Injuries, Major Illness, Minor Injuries, Panic Attacks, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Survival Class, Tarsus IV mentions, YOu can't italicize a tag, so much rain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-02
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-06-20 22:04:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 37,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15543117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrairieDawn/pseuds/PrairieDawn
Summary: Kirk and nine other cadets complete their first eight weeks at the Academy with a two week survival exercise in Northern California.  Kirk finds himself challenged by parts of his past he'd rather not revisit.





	1. Lesson One

**Author's Note:**

> This is for Miya, and hopefully will turn into something worth reading.

Captain Pike called back to the ten cadets seated in the shuttlecraft behind him, “Everybody ready for a little camping?”

There was a chorus of groans, along with one enthusiastic “Yes!” 

Kirk turned around to find the source of the shout and grinned at Lim Xin Li, the atmospheric scientist. Lim was an odd little duck, and he liked the hell out of her.

As they turned the craft to make their final approach, Pike said, “All right, remember the rules. Treat all simulations as if they were real. Only I can call a time out. In the event of a time out, you freeze in place to the extent you can do so safely. The two command candidates have been given the emergency communications override code, which should only be used if a real, life threatening event occurs. Understood?”

“Yes, sir!” They all chorused in uniform.

The two week Wilderness Survival Exercise capped off their eight week induction into Starfleet. They had gone through six weeks of intense physical training in which Jim Kirk had discovered that he wasn’t nearly as in shape as he had thought he was. Then there were the long, dull lecture classes in crowded halls full of yawning cadets, covering the rules and regulations that governed Starfleet, the cultural mores of the more prominent Federation member races, and the lab courses in operating and repairing standard issue equipment, from phasers to communicators to the standardized controls that made the helm of any ship, from a one person skiff to a starship, operable by anyone in Starfleet. Theoretically.

Anyone who couldn’t handle the basics had already dropped out. Kirk looked around at the people with whom he would be spending the next two weeks, a group selected by a combination of computers and instructors to challenge and educate each other. Leonard McCoy had ended up with him as a result of his hacking the Starfleet course listings. No one had called him on it, though he was pretty sure McCoy suspected his involvement in their ending up in the same group, and he was almost certain Pike knew. He wondered why Pike hadn’t said anything.

Pike, for his part, was their instructor for this trip. He sat in the back, watching them while Ruza Novotny piloted the shuttle according to his instructions. They were headed to a wilderness area in Northern California along with several other groups of cadets just finishing boot camp. There were to be three surprises. All he knew for sure about them was that they weren’t always the same and that the cadets were all sworn to secrecy afterward. He reasoned that there were a limited number of possibilities, and he had spent the previous night listing them all on a piece of hard copy before destroying it. They could be split up, he figured. Pike might abandon them, and good riddance, he thought. Some of them could be fake injured, there were a million ways to rob them of the survival equipment in the shuttle…that last one gave him pause. He slid his hand down over the heavy backpack resting by his calf. He had a hunch.

The shuttle set down neatly on a flat stretch of stone near a cliff. Kirk wasted no time pulling the backpack strap over one arm, a good thing, since the moment the engines sighed to a stop bright red lights and a loud, bell like tone began to sound. “The engines,” Novotny said. “They’re overloading.” She kept her voice measured and even.

“How long do we have?” Kirk shouted, glad that the modern alert tones were deliberately set to interfere as little as possible with the pitches of humanoid speech.

Novotny searched the panel for information. The other cadets peeled out of their restraints. “2 minutes. Saggda, you’re with me. Everyone else, evacuate to a minimum distance of 100 meters.”

Kirk shouted to the already moving cadets, “Don’t leave empty handed. Grab the nearest survival equipment and go!”

“I’ve got the medkit!” True Daly shouted on her way out the rear hatch.

“Tents!” Mick Turei said in kind. He was juggling both of them in his huge arms, but they were awkwardly shaped, and he struggled to keep hold of them.

Kirk beelined for the crate of emergency rations, sparing a glance at McCoy, whose arms were full of thermal blankets and his own personal effects, which in McCoy’s case was just fine. McCoy carried a medkit wherever they went, and they had packed their own bags together, planning for what they expected were the most likely needs. 

“I can’t compensate,” Saggda said quietly, then turned back to shout, “We have less time than we thought. Twenty seconds…forget the gear and go!”

Kirk wasn’t willing to put down the crate, but he did stop trying to hook the camp stove with his foot and barreled straight out of the back of the shuttle to hurl himself at the treeline as though his life really did depend on it. He could hear Dwen and Ruza pelting behind him until a loud buzzer sounded. “Time Out!” Pike shouted.

He couldn’t stop on a dime while carrying a twenty kilo crate in his arms, but he did manage to collapse into a roll and stop a couple of meters beyond where he had been. He leaned up against a tree, breathing hard. He was covered with something sticky.

Pike aimed a remote at the shuttle and it took off without them, disappearing behind the treeline in moments. “The blast radius when the shuttle exploded caused injuries at fifty-five meters, serious injuries at thirty meters, and death at ten meters. Let’s see how all of you did.”

Kirk looked down at himself. He was covered with a tarry blue black liquid, as was the crate of MREs. His heart rate tipped up slightly. He hoped Pike had checked his allergies before spreading whatever that was everywhere. He probably had. This particular booby trap had clearly been set with him in mind.

“Six of you, Kirk, Ruza, Lim, Finnegan, Shaan, and Daly are well out of the blast radius. “Petrucci, Saggda, McCoy.” He looked down at a datapad. “You are all in the minor injuries zone. McCoy, your dominant hand is broken. We’ll put it in a sling. Shaan, ankle. No walking on your left foot. Petrucci, concussion, no talking for the rest of the day.” He looked around. “And Turei you are in the serious injury zone. Five more meters and you’d be dead. Let that be a lesson to you about showing off. You’re out of commission for the rest of the day. No talking, no moving, no helping.” Turei lay down in place. “Medics, depending on your skills and supplies, you may be able to treat your crewmates.” 

The cadets all stood in place, awaiting further orders. “All right, cadets. Treat this like it’s real. Time in.”

Novotny took a few steps toward Kirk. He waved her off. “You get everyone organized. I have to assess my situation here.” She nodded. Kirk’s research had shown him that the most common reason teams failed this exercise was because the command candidates failed to get along. Kirk had been lucky enough to draw Novotny as a partner. The two of them had capitalized on the couple of hours they’d had to prepare, figuring out how they were going to pass command back and forth, given that neither had any advantage over the other in rank.

“I’ll send Lim to give you a hand.” She held up a hand as a signal for the rest of the cadets to gather to her. McCoy and Daly were already converging on the fake-injured Turei. Petrucci helped Shaan to hop to a boulder nearby. Kirk resisted the urge to touch his pack with his tarry hands.

Lim made her way to where he stood, tricorder already out. “Some kind of hydrocarbon based caulking material. It’s extremely toxic if ingested, but if we can get it off your skin in the next half hour you should be fine.”

Kirk nodded understanding. “Water source near here?”

She checked her data pad. “There’s a stream a hundred meters that way. I’ll take you.”

“Hey Novotny, Lim and I are heading to a stream a hundred meters south-southeast.”

“Acknowledged!”

Since he was already sticky, he picked up the crate and hauled it with him to the stream. “Don’t touch any of it,” he told Lim. “Is my pack still clean?”

“Yeah.”

He shrugged out of it and pulled off his shirt. The material stuck to itself and hardened in the cold water, but not enough to pull out of the fabric. The shirt was ruined. He scrubbed at the spots where had stuck to his arm hair, then tore the shirt and wrapped strips of the clean part around his hands, throwing the back panel to Lim. “Wrap your hands. We need see what we can do about the food.”

Ideally, there would have been three days worth of food for eleven people in that crate, which would help ease them into foraging, give them time to tie fishnets and set traps for small animals and gather edible wild plants to keep them going for the two weeks until they were picked up. He had known that food would be the hardest issue for all of them to deal with, but even more so for him, so he had rehearsed his responses in his head since his third day at the Academy, when he heard of the survival challenge in the first place.

Lim dutifully wrapped her hands and removed the first layer of meals, which were stuck together in a stinky, black mass. The packaging had been eaten away by the solvents, along with the food. She set the ruined meals in a pile. The second layer, too, was destroyed, though at least some of the packages were recognizeable. The left half of the third was welded to the crate with goo and all of the food inside was clearly ruined. Out of the whole crate, five meals were maybe salvageable, and that only if the proximity to the volatile chemicals coming off the goo didn’t render them unsafe to eat. “We can take these back and run a scanner over them to see if they’re still good,” Lim said. Kirk nodded agreement, and they walked back with their meager supplies. The rations in Kirk’s backpack were still intact, fortunately, as were the ones McCoy had packed into his own bag at his request.

He returned, shirtless, to find the other cadets arranged in a semicircle around Turei. Bones looked up at him. “Already? Really?” His medkit sat by his ankle, but the large satchel they’d stuffed with food was gone.

“Where’s your bag?” Kirk asked.

“Destroyed in the ‘explosion,’ along with both tents, all of Turei’s kit, a pair of solar lights, and Petrucci’s shoes.”

“Destroyed in the explosion,” Kirk repeated. Pike had contrived to ensure the loss of as much food as he could, given the parameters of the exercise. The destruction of the ration packs was no accident. Kirk sat back on his haunches to glare at Pike. So, the old man wanted to make it hard for him? Bring it on.


	2. Down to Business

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kirk and Novotny rally their fellow cadets to meet the challenges presented by the Northern California wilderness.

When she had a chance, Novotny pulled Kirk aside. Pike, who apparently was not required to rough it for the purposes of the exercise, rested on a folding lounge chair with his feet up, reading something on a data pad that looked from the spacing of the paragraphs to be a novel. It ought to be lunchtime, but Kirk ignored his grumbling stomach with an ease born of weeks of practice denying himself lunch, or breakfast and lunch. He knew this was coming.

“Expect Pike to fuck with the food supply every chance he gets,” he told Novotny. “It’s personal.”

Novotny tilted her head, frowning. “What did you do? Everybody knows you’re his golden boy.”

The accusation (compliment?) made him blush and he ducked his head. A quick glance behind him showed McCoy was still tied to Turei, pretending to monitor his supposed critical injuries. “He has his reasons.”

“Not very fair, is it?”

Kirk shook his head. “We need to know that we can function hungry, and tired, and sick, and scared…” That was just it. It sucked, and he was pissed as hell every time he looked at Pike, who knew…he was the only person who knew about that nasty piece of his past and he was going to shove it right in his face. But Pike was right, too. Better to work through it now than somewhere he could get people really dead.

“This trip is going to suck,” Novotny concluded. “Anyway, it’s your turn to be in command.”

“Right,” Kirk said. “You know, we might need to get people to move, fast, like we did in the shuttlecraft. They can’t be trying to figure out who’s in charge.”

“So you want command from now on.” She rolled her eyes.

He shook his head. “Everybody knows how I score on the command aptitude tests. I don’t need the experience. Command is yours, if you want it.”

The genuine surprise on her face shifted into a wider “O” of shock, as though she were intentionally mocking them both. She put her hand to her heart. “Jimmy, you flatter me!”

“Please don’t call me Jimmy,” he said, then kicked himself for ruining the moment.

She turned back to him, serious. “You got my back?”

“’Course I gotcha. That’s my job as your XO.” He needed to trust that his brain wouldn’t fucking betray him at the earliest opportunity, and she needed to trust that everyone around her wasn’t scheming for position.

“You’re not getting laid out of this, I hope you know.”

“Farthest thing from my mind. One other thing.” He had to ask.

“What?”

He had to swallow the tightness in his chest before he could speak. “Put me in charge of rations, would you?”

“Why?”

He toyed with the idea of telling her something…not the whole truth, but something. “I’ve studied the problem,” he said, finally. Which was at least not false.

She held his eyes for a few beats longer than was comfortable. “Okay. You’re in charge of food and water, and I’m in charge of where we go and where we stay.”

“Deal.”

*

They gathered in a circle around Turei so he could hear their plans even if he wasn’t allowed to participate. McCoy and the other “injured” cadets were free of their slings and splints since both he and Daly had managed to bring medkits with them out of the shuttle. Kirk noted with satisfaction that they were both only pretending to use them on Turei, presumably to save the battery in the likely even that someone got into a real scrape out here.

“First order of business, what do we need to survive?”

“Food, water, shelter, and security,” Lim supplied. “The water in the stream where Kirk and I cleaned up is safe to drink.”

“If we boil or filter it,” Petrucci corrected. “I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to get giardiasis.”

Daly and McCoy nodded agreement. Novotny said, “Please don’t tell me what that is. I don’t want to know. Do we have a water filter?”

There had been a filter in Bones’ bag. The one Pike had confiscated because he hadn’t made it far enough from the shuttle before it “exploded.” No one else had one, including Kirk. “Boiling it is,” he said.

“On to food,” Novotny said. “Jim Kirk has agreed to be responsible for rations and procurement.”

“And I want Petrucci on it with me. I know you know your edible wild plants.”

Petrucci nodded. Kirk noted with interest that Petrucci also had a canteen, not standard issue, resting on one hip.

“Good. The MREs on the shuttle were destroyed by a chemical leak,” Kirk told them. “So we’re down to what anyone brought in their personal kit. I’m not going to search bags, but I need to know what we have.”

Daly opened her bag and placed several bags of dried fruit and nuts on the rocks in front of them. “I brought these for trail snacks. I figured we might need extra food for the first couple of days.” She paused. “I also have sugar cubes and salt, but those are only for making up electrolyte replacement solution.”

“I can guarantee someone’s going to get gastroenteritis out here,” Bones told them all. “Good thinking, Daly.”

It was especially good thinking, Kirk thought, given that Daly wasn’t really medically trained yet. She was just an eighteen year old kid going into premed. “What he said,” Kirk said. Next?”

Shaan spoke next. “I have some zheem. Humans can eat it. It’s a sort of rich cookie. Lots of calories.” Speaking drew everyone’s attention to her. She’d taken off her overshirt and sat quietly in her undershirt, arms behind her holding her up, legs straight out in front of her and separated at an angle.

Bones looked her over. “Anybody else hot?” Several hands went up. “We need to move to the shade. Shaan, you can’t sweat, so we need to know right away when you’re overheating. Lim, you know where the stream is, take her there and make sure she gets all the way in.” He looked up at Novotny. “In my medical opinion, that is, young lady. Ma’am.”

“Sounds like a plan. Kirk, Petrucci, Finnegan, and Daly, open up one of those blankets and make a stretcher for Turei. We’ll have to blanket carry him into the shade of that stand of pines.”

Daly swept her snacks back into her bag, then helped Bones lay out a blanket for Turei. “Remember, you’re unconscious,” she told him. “Let us do all the work.”

Bones directed. “All right, remember, that neck injury is knitted, but it’s not fully healed, he needs to be moved all in one piece, like a log.”

“Be easier if he didn’t weigh a ton,” Finnegan complained. Turei was fully two meters tall and weighed nearly three hundred pounds, most of it muscle.

“You don’t get to pick your patients,” Bones told him. He gestured Kirk to Turei’s feet, took the head and neck region himself, and put Daly and Petrucci in the middle. “On three. Finnegan, spread out the blanket while we have him rolled up on his side. One. Two. Three.” Kirk lifted and turned Turei’s legs, following the lead of the other three. Finnegan stuffed the blanket around them and pulled it as flat as he could. “And back down. Slowly,” Bones directed. Most of Turei ended up on the blanket. Daly walked around him to pull out the corners.

“All right, now,” Bones caught all their attention. “We’re going to roll the edges of the blanket up tight so they’re right next to his body, make a nice firm sling for him to lie in. “Saggda and Finnegan, this a six person carry, three on each side. Remember, you drop him, you hurt him for real, so take it seriously. Again, on three.”

Kirk lifted. It was a lot harder than it looked. A rolled edge of blanket wasn’t an ideal handle and Turei was heavy. They had about sixty steps, give or take, to make before they could set him down in the bed of pine needles under the trees. Novotny sprinted past them to check that the place they planned to lay him was flat and clear of rocks. When they were about two thirds of the way there, Finnegan dropped his end, causing Turei to roll toward Bones, and Saggda on the opposite side to lose zer grip on the blanket. Se recovered, throwing her arms under Turei’s middle to hold him up. Bones’ cursed, and Finnegan recaptured the now much less efficently rolled blanket.

They got him the rest of the way, awkwardly, setting him down on the grass. Daly bent over him to pretend to run the medscanner. Bones was red faced and fuming. “Mr. Finnegan, if you had pulled a stunt like that and Turei was really hurt you could have killed him. You could have injured any one of the rest of us!”

“Dr. McCoy?” Saggda said quietly.

“Just a minute. If you aren’t going to take this exercise seriously you might as well just go home!”

“It’s not real,” Finnegan chuckled.

“That’s not the point!”

“Dr. McCoy,” Saggda tried again.

“What is it?” he snapped. 

Kirk looked at zem then. Ze was holding zer arm straight down, clutching the elbow. Zer teeth were pressed hard into zer bottom lip. Bones’ face changed entirely in a second. “What did you do? No, don’t move it, I’ll be right over.”

He pulled out his medscanner. “Marjari have loose elbow joints compared to humans. I should have had Novotny take that spot.” He touched the arm. Saggda hissed in a breath. “It’s dislocated.”

Novotny stepped up beside him. “You think we can send Finnegan home for this?”

“Probably not. Yet,” Kirk told her.

“You want to dress him down or write him up?” 

Kirk thought about it. “You write him up. Finnegan and I have a history. He’ll claim I’m prejudiced against him.”

“Just don’t get into a fight.”

Kirk grinned. “Oh, I’m going to let Bones do all the talking.”

“Ms. Novotny?” Bones said.

“Yes, Dr. McCoy?”

“Between us, Daly and I have sixteen doses of local anesthetic. I’m using one to help me reduce Saggda’s elbow joint.”

“Thanks for keeping me informed.” Novotny sat down on the pine needles beside Saggda, offering zem a hand to squeeze. 

Bones waited for his hypospray to take effect, then expertly turned and pulled until the elbow seated itself back in its socket. He pulled a roll of blue fabric out of his medkit and shook it out, revealing it to be a sling, and slid zer arm inside, then ran the tissue regenerator over the injured joint. “Daly, run down to the stream and check on Shaan, would you?” he said.

Daly looked to Novotny for confirmation. “Take Petrucci. Nobody travels alone,” she said. Daly and Petrucci set off for the stream.

Kirk leaned back against a tree, a pair of pine needles between his teeth to chew while he waited for the show to begin.

Bones was quiet. He took Finnegan by the elbow and led him away from the group, though still in earshot of Kirk and Novotny. “You injured a fellow cadet with your screwing around.”

“It was Turei’s fault. He’s slow and heavy.”

“That’s two strikes against you, as far as I’m concerned. One more and I will recommend you be removed from this exercise.” He continued. “You know what we’re here to learn, Finnegan? What we’re really here to learn? There’s no mission, there’s no goal, there’s just us and nature. We’re here to learn how to take care of each other. And you just failed. Big time. Novotny, can you find something for him to do? I don’t want to look at him.”

Bones stalked over to Kirk’s tree and leaned against it, legs crossed identically to Kirk’s. “My directions were clear, weren’t they?” he muttered.

“Crystal,” Kirk assured him.

“Back to work,” Novotny said. “We’re wasting daylight. Finnegan, you got any good ideas for how we’re going to shelter in place? We’ve got a total of five blankets, including the one Turei’s on. That’s pretty much it, and the clothes on our backs.” She regarded Kirk’s naked torso. “Come nightfall, you’ll need something.”

“I have a sweatshirt in my bag.”

“Try not to tear it.”

“Thanks.”

“How cold is it supposed to get tonight?” Saggda asked.

“Not too bad, eighteen degrees,” Kirk said, checking his datapad. “If we put up a couple of the blankets as windbreaks we should be fine until tomorrow.”

“We can look for better shelter when we’re not carrying Turei,” Novotny agreed. Turei shifted on the blankets. “What do we want to do about food?”

Kirk frowned. “You’re not going to like this.”

“Talk to me.”

“I have sixty three hundred calorie energy bars in my personal bag.”

“What’s not to like about that? Did you know Pike was going to ruin all the food?”

“I suspected. The part that’s not to like is I’m not giving out anything until we’re ready for bed. Everyone gets one bar at bedtime. That’s ten bars. Tomorrow we forage for our meals.”

“Seems a bit harsh, don’t you think?”

Kirk shook his head. “We’re out here for two weeks. I’m not going to have us run out of food on the first day. We’re going to have to get used to being hungry. Bones?”

“Yeah, kid?”

“Could you maybe not call me kid while we’re on duty?”

“Could you maybe not call me that silly nickname while we’re on duty?”

“Boys,” Novotny said.

“Fine. Dr. McCoy, how well do Ouremi tolerate caloric restriction?”

“Compared to humans, not as well. They have a higher metabolism. They need fewer calories in total, but they can’t last as long without food than humans. And Saggda’s hurt.”

Kirk reached into his bag. “Give this to zem now.” He handed Bones an oatmeal cranberry energy bar. When Bones turned away from the two of them, he asked Novotny, “You got any past traumas or weaknesses Pike might exploit? If Pike is hitting me where it hurts most, he’s probably going to hit you too.”

Novotny took a handful of pine needles and let them sift through her fingers. “I don’t think Pike would…”

“You don’t have to say,” he said.

She met his eyes, surprised. “You too, huh?”

He dropped his head into a nod, but didn’t look up right away. He spent a minute or two tracing the lines of pine needles weaving in and out under his feet. When he could look up again, he said, “Anything else he could use against you that he knows about? Assume he’s gotten access to your psych eval.”

“Being left behind,” she said. “It’s complicated, and I didn’t realize it myself until the interview. But yeah. I can handle about anything if I’m not alone.”

“It helps to be responsible for someone,” Kirk agreed. “Keeps your mind off yourself.”

“You think all command candidates think that way?” she asked.

Kirk shrugged his ignorance. Petrucci, Daly, Lim, and Shaan returned from the stream. McCoy collected Shaan, sat her down next to Saggda, and ran his medscanner over her. “You look much better,” he told her. “Don’t try to stick it out in the heat just because we can. This weather’s as dangerously hot for you as Vulcan would be for the rest of us.” Shaan bobbed her antennae sheepishly, but joined the rest of them, save Bones and Turei, on the weathered stone platform where the shuttle had dropped them off. It was the safest place to start a fire.

Daly held several bottles of water in her arms. “This stuff’s already boiled,” she said. Petrucci had taken off his jacket and was holding it like a bag.

“Way to take the initiative,” Novotny told them. “Where did you get the bottles?”

“They’re collapsible. I brought them in case we needed electrolyte solution.” She paused. “We’re going to need containers if we’re going to forage and try to cook anything.”

“What did you bring us, Petrucci?” Kirk said.

Petrucci touched his lips to remind them that he wasn’t allowed to talk until morning, but opened the bag to show half a liter of Grey Pine nuts nestled among feral hosta leaves and cattails.

“You are my new favorite person,” Kirk told him. “Did you see any oak down there?”

“Several species, but they weren’t right up by the stream and we decided not to go where we didn’t have sight lines between the four of us.”

“Great.” He pulled his tiny camp stove and the stack of nested metal pans out of his bag. At his fellow cadets’ raised eyebrows, he shurgged. “I like to eat regularly. I also like to cook. So I brought stuff. The tins can be used to cook or to eat off of, I’ve got a couple stirring spoons and a real knife in my kit. How many of you have a knife?”

He wasn’t surprised to see Bones and Daly’s hands go up, but so did Lim, Shaan, and Petrucci. “Didn’t your bag get taken from you?” he asked Petrucci, who pulled the knife out of one of the pockets of his field jacket, then proceeded to remove a flint and steel, a spool of fishing line, a whistle, a mirror, and an old fashioned compass.

“Ok, I’m impressed,” Kirk admitted. He was lucky to have his bag. He hadn’t thought to stuff his pockets with additional essentials.

*

There hadn’t been enough of the foraged food to give any of them more than a taste, but the taste, given that Kirk had also stuffed his bag with salt, pepper, garlic powder and curry, was actually not bad. It had shown how much of their time they have to spend foraging if they wanted to keep themselves well fed. After their meager snack, he let Petrucci teach everyone how to make fish traps and snares, then they used two of the blankets to make a windbreak and squished inside. It was a good thing nobody in their group had an aversion to being touched, at least not one they admitted to. Kirk passed out the energy bars, reminding everyone to eat them as slowly as possible, and made sure Novotny was next to Saggda on the one side and Lim on the other. They spread the last two blankets over all of them, Kirk on an end next to Bones.

Finnegan and Daly took the first watch.

He didn’t even remember the first dream that woke him up, but the scent of burning hair was in his nose and his heart was racing. He opened his eyes. He could count on bad dreams every time he went to bed hungry. It was too dark to see anything but shadows, but the familiar bulk of Bones’ angular body curled next to him, snoring slightly. He scrunched a little closer, risked resting his head on the other man’s shoulder. Necessity packed them in like puppies in a basket anyway. 

He hated sitting meditation with a deep and abiding passion, preferring forms that let him distract his restless body with motion like running or punching a speed bag, but that wasn’t possible tonight. He freed his right hand and used it to finger count the square roots of all the catalog numbers for the stars he could see, gradually drifting back to sleep. 

*

The faint warble awakened him with such abruptness he was already rolling away from Bones to crouch behind the tree before he had any idea why. Had he been acting out a dream? No, there was the sound again and he was as sure as he could be that he was awake. The air smelled faintly of ozone and nitrogen oxides. “Phaser fire, two o’clock!” he said, quietly but urgently.

Bones and Novotny were up immediately, shaking the rest of them awake. Another shot, this one marked by a blue line of light, speared the air above them. They all hit the ground to lie flat. Their camp was difficult to defend, and he could kick himself for that fact, but they were limited by how far they could carry Turei. He had catalogued escape routes before they’d gone to sleep almost without thinking about it, and there was a steep slide about forty meters away in the direction of the shuttle’s landing site that led to a gully thick with ferns and other concealing vegetation.

His eyes tracked toward it. He turned to check behind him and met, oddly, Finnegan’s eye. He nodded, chucking his chin in the direction of the slide. “This way!” they shouted almost together, then stationed themselves on either side, keeping low in the vegetation. Petrucci and Turei made it first, followed closely by Daly and Saggda, the latter’s arm still immobilized in a sling. Shaan and Lim followed, then, deliberately last, Bones and Novotny. As she passed, she said, “Do we have everyone?”

“Yes,” he told her, then followed her down the slope, Finnegan right behind him. He hunkered down into a mess of ferns, gesturing for everyone else to do so as well. His datapad blipped, barely audible. “Does anyone know where Pike is?”

No one answered. Novotny replied, “We’ll have to check the campsite. Later.”

The datapad blipped again. Beside him, McCoy’s blipped too. Kirk pulled his out and flipped it on, the thin light of dawn enough to prevent its light from giving away their position. The screen showed a brief message in large type, yellow against a black background.

**The next shots will be yellow paint balls and I won’t be shooting to miss.  
Good Luck.  
Pike**


	3. Head Start

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pike gives the cadets a two hour head start.

It wasn’t like he hadn’t seen it coming. Being hunted was even on his list, though paintball was a whimsical way of going about it. It was, however, for the moment, too damn real.

“Check for more defensible positions.” That was Novotny.

“Aye.” Finnegan. A pause, quiet swishing movements through undergrowth. Not quiet enough, his brain sang at him. “This way.”

“Bit of a drop.” Novotny again. He needed to shake this paralysis, but he could not command his muscles to move, and his thoughts felt flattened. He could think. He could process the images in front of his eyes, the sounds in his ears, the buzzing insects trying to fly up his nose, but he couldn’t make himself process any of it.

“I gotcha.” Turei said.

Kirk heard the muted slap of feet dropping onto packed earth, soft enough that their owner must be bending their knees to absorb sound and impact. A firm grip pulled him along, still low to the ground. He crept behind on instinct, fortunately not having to think about the slow, smooth motions needed to slip between the ferns without making undue noise.

He checked behind him, relieved to see Bones close on his six. Novotny had a vise grip on his upper arm. “You’re next,” she told him. He looked down at a drop of about two meters, maybe a little more, below which there was an overhang. The bird and insect noises echoed slightly in that direction, indicating a possible cave. Turei, on his belly, reached out to grip Kirk’s forearms. Kirk returned the grip, and thus braced, Turei lowered him most of the way to the bottom, letting him slide out of his grip to land, light and bent kneed, on the slightly damp earth at the mouth of the cave.

Kirk stepped back to make room for Bones to drop down after him, then again for Saggda, who held on with just zer good arm. McCoy reached up to lower zem gently to the ground.

Pike had to know where they would go. There were ten of them, and he couldn’t be that bad of a tracker. If he were actively seeking them out he would find them any minute. He should have found them already. The fact he hadn’t gave Kirk a moment’s distance, made their situation less real and so easier to think about. They had nothing to fear but a splatter of paint and a bad grade.

His datapad blipped again.

**RULES**

**You have two hours as of 1000 hours exactly to prepare.**

**I am hunting you with one and only one other instructor. We also living rough, with only the instruments we can carry.**

**I will not seek you out by life signs or by your personal safety locators. Do not disable your personal safety locators.**

**If you are hit by a paintball, use the medscanners to determine the extent of your “injury” and recommended treatment**

**If you “die” of a paintball injury, affix one of the beacons in the bag to your person and turn it on. You will be beamed out within five minutes. Note: The bag of beacons has been placed in Cadet Kirk’s pack.**

**If a member of your team is seriously injured, that person may be returned to civilization in the same manner. Please use the emergency comm unit to alert medical personnel.**

**1008 hours**

As he watched, the number at the end flipped to 1009.

 

His skin still buzzed with the sensation, almost like numbness, of panic held in abeyance, but he could function. He showed the datapad to Novotny. “Well, that’s more fair than I was expecting,” she said, then, “Are you okay?”

“I’ll tell you the moment I’m not,” he said, hoping he wasn’t lying.

“Is this a you thing too?”

“Yes. But now is not the time.”

“Right. Strategy?”

“You’re the commanding officer.”

“And you’ve been hunted.” She waved Bones over. “I’m not stupid, Kirk. So, we have to keep ten people alive for two weeks in the woods while being hunted by two Starfleet Academy instructors. How do we do that?”

Kirk thought for a moment. “I’m tempted to split us up, but the rules do not say Pike won’t use our communicators to triangulate our location, so finding each other again could be tough. We’ll just have to concentrate on finding a defensible position.”

Novotny raised her voice. “Gather round, everyone, and don’t worry, we have a couple of hours before he comes back.” She passed the pad to Daly, who started it going hand to hand around the semicircle of cadets. “We’re moving out to find a more defensible position. Now, our experienced woodsmen here are Jim Kirk and Rafe Petrucci, so they will be guiding us for the time being.”

Kirk’s chest pinched tight and his face went cold and numb, stopping his voice for a second. Bones and Novotny both looked long at him, but neither said anything. He cleared his throat. “Long term, the only way out is through. We have to neutralize the threat.”

“He’s our teacher,” Shaan noted. “And we don’t have a lot of nonlethal options, here.”

“Right, so the plan is capture, not kill. Obviously. Or just steal his paintball gun. Beat him at his own game,” Novotny said.  
“Who, besides me and Petrucci, knows how to track people in the wilderness?” 

Turei raised a hand first. After a moment of hesitation, Saggda raised zer good arm. “Also, I understand humans do not always know where they are.”

“What do you mean, Saggda?” Lim asked.

“I always know where I am. I can perceive magnetic fields. I can focus on a particular location and determine where I am with respect to that location at all times based on the magnetic fields and visual landmarks.”

“That’s useful,” Shaan said.

“I also get terribly space sick.”

“The Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away,” Bones remarked, not especially reverently. 

Kirk dug into his pack. “We’re going to need to make a strategy for neutralizing Pike. I think that justifies breaking into the rations.” He handed an energy bar to each of his companions. “We need to move fast and stay together. I recommend everyone pair off. Turei, you’re also a wilderness expert, so you’re going to bring up the rear with Novotny. You’ll need to count heads and keep us all together. Shaan, it’s going to get hot, but we’re going to have to keep moving. Keep drinking water and wetting yourself down. Daly I’m assigning you to stay on her case. Eat your rations. Don’t try to save them for later.”

They would all be hitting the hunger wall about now. Kirk had scrupulously carb loaded on rigatoni and spicy sausage the night before they left and had eaten an obscene number of pancakes, at least in Bones’ opinion, yesterday morning, but it was approaching twenty four hours since he’d eaten anything but the one energy bar and he was starting to feel hunger settling into his gut like a many clawed spider, sapping his strength and sending periodic frissons of anxiety out of his chest and into his brain.

He ate the bar with disciplined slowness, the better to ensure every bite was digested. “All right, grab your things, we’re moving out.” The glowing number on the datapad said 1024 hours. “Stay with your partner at all times. “Bones, you’re with me at the front. Petrucci and Lim next, Daly and Shaan in the middle, then Finnegan and Saggda, and Novotny and Turei bringing up the rear. We’re cutting across to the north, in the direction of the stream up by where the shuttle dropped, but further downstream. Once we get to the stream we’ll be following it, walking in the water if we can. It may not hide us, but if we’re lucky it will throw Pike off our trail long enough to buy us some time. Everybody ready?”

Nods all round. “Let’s get on it,” Novotny said.

Kirk led them through the undergrowth. They made good time, from his point of view. Finnegan grumbled at their pace. Hiking on trail was a different proposition entirely from walking through woods that had never been formally cleared and hadn’t seen human occupation in a couple of years. It was good that they were wearing their away mission uniforms, rather than the flimsy velour tops and dresses designed for wearing on ships. The motion was good for him, he decided, kept his body focused on keeping his footing and on the exercise itself and him mind focused on finding the easiest routes through trees, shrubs, and the ever present coils and clumps of briar. Bones kept pace with him, neither of them speaking except to point out a hazard or make a quick decision about a direction.

He could hear water. Hissing, splattering, fast moving water. He turned them more in its direction, but paused for a moment to check the time on his data pad. 1115 hours. Forty five more minutes until Pike would start after them. Bones reported, “I still count ten.”

“Acknowledged,” he said, formally. “This way.”

They scrambled down another boulder strewn slide covered with slick and fuzzy moss and stepped out on a beach of sorts, strewn with round pebbles ranging in size from grapes to loaves of bread. The stream at this point had widened and deepened, but was moving much more quickly coming off the two and a half meter waterfall a few hundred meters upstream. The water washing over and around the larger boulders strewn about the streambed made for rapids, not safe to traverse on foot. Kirk wanted to cross the stream before Pike figured out where they were. Perhaps they’d have better luck farther down stream.

Lim and Finnegan had dropped to their haunches to rest. Everyone else seemed to be taking inventory of minor hurts, picking burrs and spines out of their clothes and hair. “Bones, take five minutes to check everyone out and then we’re moving on.”

He looked to Saggda and Shaan next. Shaan was already stripped to bra and panties, lying flat in a shallow pool a few meters downstream of the rest of them, tended by Daly, who was wetting down all the Andorian’s clothes. Saggda’s arm remained bound safely to her side. Bones ran his medcanner over it while he watched.

He strode over to Finnegan’s lazy butt where he sat on the damp stones, then corrected himself on seeing how pink and sweat soaked the taller man was. He turned to Saggda instead. ‘How are you doing?” 

“It’s hard with all the climbing just having one arm. Finnegan’s had to half-carry me most of the way.”

He nodded. “Partner with Petrucci for a bit.”

Now he was ready to check on Finnegan. “I’m switching Saggda with Lim,” he told him. “You’ve carried zem long enough.”

Novotny found him and he caught her up on the partner switch, then said, “We’ve got a couple of choices here. We can follow the water downstream and hope for a better place to cross, or we can strike out that way, up that hill, try to find defensible high ground. I’m for heading downstream. I’d like to cross the water if we can.”

“Crossing here?” she suggested.

He shook his head. “No. That water looks shallow, but it’s moving fast. Sweep you right off your feet.”

“Downstream it is. How you holding up?”

He shrugged. “I’ll be fine until we stop.”

She chucked her chin at Bones. “You two a thing or something?”

“I wish,” he said before he could recall the words. “I mean, yes and no. He’s fresh off a divorce, I’m toxic waste. We’re just friends.”

“Word to the wise,” she said. “Friends isn’t just anything.” She turned around to the group at large. “All right, it’s 1122 hours. We gotta go! Up and at ‘em!”

They fell in behind Kirk and Bones. The going was tougher, the vegetation thicker and lower to the ground near the water. Another couple hundred meters and a splash stopped him in his tracks. Two, four, six, and Novotny and Turei bringing up the rear. He scanned the water to see Lim come up alongside with an easy side stroke, Finnegan swimming a determined crawl behind her. She fetched up on a snag of driftwood, reached out an arm, and pulled him alongside. Kirk looked down at them both. “That branch stable?”

“Plenty. Water’s plenty deep here and the current’s not bad.”

“Anyone know how to do a lifeguard carry?”

Turei raised a hand.

“All right, anyone here besides Saggda not know how to swim? Seriously, tell me now or drown later.” Apparently everyone could swim. “Stow medicine and food in waterproof bags.”

Bones checked the seal on his medkit and secured it across his body. Kirk double checked the bags holding the ration bars. Novotny was already helping Daly check her own kit. Kirk pulled a few drawstring bags, the ones he planned to fill with forage, out of his pack. “Over your shoulder, put your shoes and socks in there so you don’t lose them. Your clothes will resist your movements, but they shouldn’t soak up too much water. How deep is it?”

Daly pulled out a tricorder. “A little less than a meter by the edge, about two meters in the middle. And say nine, ten meters to the opposite shore.” Not quite a river, Kirk thought, but getting there. They hopped and slid into the water, Turei turning onto his back to tuck Saggda half onto his torso while he swam. It wasn’t a bad swim at all, here. They allowed the current to carry them downstream while they swam across, and they weren’t as good at coming ashore in the same spot as he’d have liked, but they did all—one two three four five six seven eight nine and him—make it across. Once Kirk was out of the water he pulled out the datapad again. 1150 hours. 

Finnegan and Novotny reached him first. Kirk could see Finnegan assessing the terrain for defensible, yet hidden locations. Finnegan scouted around a promising outcropping of stone that led away from the stream bed. “What do you think of this?” he said.

Kirk allowed Novotny to look before he commented. Finnegan had found, not quite a cave, but a sheltered overhang that extended a dozen or so meters along its length and was obscured by curtains of kudzu and Virginia creeper. Pushing through the vines revealed a dim, moss floored natural shelter. “This will work for the short term,” she told Finnegan. “Bring everyone in and we’ll discuss next steps.”

Kirk found a spot on the mossy floor and sat, squishing in his wet uniform. He counted heads again. He followed Bones with his gaze as the doctor moved from person to person, making sure everyone was physically okay. “We stay here for the afternoon. Rest, think about how we can get Pike. And whoever’s with him.”

“Cadet Novotny,” Kirk said.

“Suggestion, Cadet Kirk?”

“Send Petrucci and Turei out to forage. With, um, Lim and Finnegan. I’ll cook what they bring back.”

“Sounds like a plan.” She left him to talk to the other cadets.

Kirk’s stomach gnawed at him. He was more lightheaded than he had any right to be, hot and cold flickering in hard to predict patterns across his skin. He smelled burning hair. Shit. All right all right all right, cross your legs, sit up straight, count your breaths, he told himself. He tapped a slow rhythm on his knee with the fingers of his right hand. 

Burning hair and rot and the harsh wrong taste of mold in his mouth. No. He could see one two three four five cadets. All safe. The other four should be out foraging. He could hear birdsong and insects calls, the shuffling of feet, quiet complaints about being wet. He ought to tell them to strip down and dry their clothes now, while it was warm. His hands and feet were still too numb. Soon. This will pass, he told himself again. He could smell, he could smell, no, not ready for that one. Wet clothes clinging to his body, unpleasant but real. Grounding.

Shuffling, next to him, another body crosslegged on the damp ground. “You okay, kid?”

“No. But I will be.” He counted one more breath. “Flashback.”

“Oh, hey, I’ve got your neurostabilizer in my kit.”

“Can’t be drowsy.” Kirk could hear the click of an ampule into the Doctor’s hypospray. 

“Not planning to give you a high dose.” 

“Don’t like hypos.”

The spray hit the side of his neck, just over the external jugular. He ducked away from the sting and brief feeling of wrongness as the fine particles hissed into the tissues of his neck. “There, it’s done.”

He counted breaths and listened to the air for another full minute before the numbness in his hands and feet receded and he could smell damp earth and how much he and Bones both could use showers, then a minute longer while he wrestled with being pissed that Bones hadn’t asked him before sticking a hypo in his neck. He didn’t want to talk about it, but he had promised Novotny, and as his temporary superior, she needed to know. And if he was telling them both, he sure as hell wasn’t going to do it twice. “Go get Novotny,” he said.

He took the opportunity, once Bones left, to strip to his undershorts and hang the rest of his clothes up on the thicker vines to drip dry. Saggda and Daly took the hint and stripped down to boy shorts and sports bras, the Starfleet issue undergarments mercifully opaque. Shaan was already out of her kit and lying flat on the cool ground toward the back of the enclosure. Daly returned to fanning her when she finished hanging up her own wet things.

Bones and Novotny returned to sit across from him. Kirk swallowed. Best do it before the drug wore off, not to mention that the chances Pike would reach their hideout increased the more time passed. It was 1240 hours according to the chrono. He couldn’t imagine them making better than twice their speed, so they had a few more minutes before keeping a lookout for Pike and the upperclassman accompanying him would be a priority. 

There was no easy way to say it. “I was on the kill list at Tarsus IV,” he said, not letting himself pause for more than a second. “I was hunted in a wilderness area, with other survivors, for eight days.” Novotny stiffened. Bones shifted his weight slightly in his direction, but seemed to sense that saying or doing anything would be a bad idea. There wasn’t much more to say, fortunately. “My involvement is classified. Need to know. You needed to know. Don’t spread it around.”

“That explains a lot,” Bones said.

“What do you mean, it explains a lot?” Kirk snapped.

“Novotny, mind giving us a minute?”

“Yeah. Sure.” She got up and crossed to the other side of their shelter.

Bones ticked off his points on his fingers as he spoke. “You hoard food. You’re hypervigilant. Your medical records have a classified section at the right time. Some of your medical issues—though some of that’s down to radiation exposure.”

“You looked through my medical records?”

“I feel responsible for your reckless ass.”

“Have I been reckless? I mean, since we’ve been on this trip.”

Bones shook his head. “No, you’ve been fine. Responsible, even.” He huffed under his breath, then snapped his fingers. “That’s it! That’s what’s been bothering me. Usually you’re cracking jokes, picking fights, showing off. Since the shuttle took off you’ve been taking care of everybody—even Novotny, for all she’s officially in charge. And you haven’t cracked a smile that wasn’t put on for somebody’s benefit.”

“Maybe I’m just destined for command.”

“You’re wound up so tight you’re going to break yourself. You’re not…you.”

“Maybe this is me.”

Bones slapped Kirk’s knee. “Just—pace yourself, kid. We’ve still got thirteen more days.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yeah, I'm not even guessing at the length of this thing any longer. It's done when it's done.


	4. Tactical Considerations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Captain Pike and Lieutenant Spock pursue the cadets through the California wilderness.

Pike stood on the outcropping of granite onto which the shuttle had deposited him and the ten cadets the previous day. It was windy and clear at the beam down point, already thirty degrees and not yet close to noon. His pack rested against his knees. “Spock, you have any more information on that weather system moving in?”

The Vulcan, who had graduated only months ago, looked up from his data pad to face off the cliff, into the wind. “A significant low pressure system will be passing through this area in forty to forty six hours. Wind is expected to gust up to one hundred kph, rain amounts of up to two to three inches per day for the following three days. Weather control satellites are currently scheduled merely to mitigate the highest energy flows in order to reduce the risk of flooding and damage to structures. Do you wish to put in a request to aggressively reroute the storm?”

Pike took a place behind Spock, considering the hot, humid wind gusting into his face. “No. There’d be no point. It’s too big to reroute easily and natural storm activity is important to the regional ecosystem.”

“Even with several hundred cadets roaming the area with insufficient supplies to safely endure a severe storm?” Spock’s pack was larger than his, and even included a second roll at the top, a two man tent Pike made sure to have along to make their travel a little less rough.

Pike nodded. “Even so. We’d never get it approved.” The students wouldn’t be nearly so well equipped as he and Spock. By design. The storm at present was little more than an atmospheric swell arcing into Canada from the Pacific, its path marked only by a fine line of lacy clouds on the global satellite view on his own datapad.

“Will you recall the students? It may be impossible to use transporters during periods of high ion discharge.”

“Not entirely up to me, but no, we won’t. We’ve run survival sims in worse weather than this. The satellites will be programmed to keep the weather from getting out of hand.”

“Very well, sir. We begin our pursuit in eleven minutes.” Spock tucked his datapad back into his pack and slung it back onto his shoulders.

Pike took a swig of water from his canteen. “Right. So, our primary goal is to keep the cadets moving, keep them off balance. We don’t want to pick them all off at once, that defeats the purpose of the exercise. However, we don’t want it to be too obvious that we’re not trying our hardest to take them down. It’s a fine line to walk.”

Spock nodded. It was his first time observing new students in the survival exercise and he was ever willing to listen to Pike’s instruction. Rather refreshing, really. “Tell me about the command candidates,” he said.

“Cadet Jim Kirk, James T. I should say. A little older than the average first year, twenty-one, quite the genius.” He neglected to mention the kid’s hacking of the assignment computers to get his friend the doctor assigned to the same group as he was. Kid didn’t know Pike was planning to place them together anyway to monitor those damned allergies and to make sure Shaan didn’t give herself heat stroke. He favored placing real doctors on teams with medically complex cadets, and McCoy was a hell of a doctor. “Deliberately elected to take the XO position for the exercise. If the reasoning he gave is to be believed, his judgment was sound.”

“And what personal or educational weaknesses is the crisis test to probe?”

“Prior trauma in his case. I can’t get into details, it’s classified, but he has a history of long term nutritional deprivation being hunted by people who wanted him dead.”

The revelation earned Pike a raised eyebrow. “Thus you selected the pursuit scenario.”

“Exactly. Ruza Novotny is younger, eighteen, also very bright. Her biggest weakness is she takes too long to come to decisions. Second guesses herself. Has a trauma history as well, again classified, but her issue stems from earlier in childhood. She was abandoned in an evacuation and not located for a few days. One goal will be to isolate her from the team for some period of time to determine her ability to function under pressure without support.”

“Understood, Captain Pike. Do you believe they will head up river or down?”

“I would have thought upriver, but they took the bolthole into the cave system below us rather than running upstream along the bank when I woke them up this morning, so I suspect the decision has been made for them. The upstream route is steep and hazardous if you start in the caves. If I were taking a bunch of green cadets out on a hike, I’d start slower and easier, especially if I didn’t want to be saddled with injuries down the line. My chrono says it’s time. Yours?”

“Yes.”

Pike led Spock off the flat rock used as a shuttle landing pad. It in fact was a reinforced shuttle landing pad, the ceramacrete base and landing markers hidden from visual inspection by a thin layer of artificial stone and real gravel. He did not take the hazardous, steep slide that Kirk and Finnegan had used as a bolthole, but instead circled further upstream, then a little away from the water to take a more gradual incline toward the network of caves.

“I have researched the flora and fauna of this region in advance of the assignment. May I assume I am correct in surmising that the California black bear and the mountain lion are the greatest threats?”

“They are. Not much compared to a le matya or a sehlat, are they?”

“Sehlats are not precisely animals, as such. But they are free beings with their own ethical code, one that does not necessarily preclude consuming the unwary.” Spock negotiated the descent down a particularly hazardous fall of boulders complicated by large coils of catbriar with a grace Pike found himself envying. 

“And le matya?”

“Are best not encountered.”

The two of them worked their way down a steep hill peppered with slabs of orange stone crusted with feathery lichen. Trees that had slid down the hillside, most in various stages of slow death, rested in haphazardly canted positions, sometimes aiding, sometimes hampering their efforts. He paused at the uneven footing, looking for a handhold, and was surprised to find Spock reaching out to assist, his feet carefully braced against large roots. “In the interest of expediting our pursuit, sir,” he said.

Pike made sure to grab the Vulcan by the wrist, over his uniform shirt, and Spock did the same, grasping Pike’s wrist and providing leverage so the older man could step down safely onto the next spot of almost level ground. A rounded outcropping of sandstone, marked with concentric whorls worked into it by an ancient body of water, dominated their view on the left. Its overhang produced a room of sorts, long and narrow, about two and a half meters deep by five meters long by three meters high. The cave mouth was on the left when one faced the rear of the sheltered area, its depths in shadow.

“Evidence of recent occupation,” Spock said, keeping to the forms even though they already knew the cadets had stopped here before beginning their flight.

Pike took a few steps further downstream, or what would be downstream if the water were visible from their location. “They’re not exactly hard to track. Ten cadets crashing through the woods leaves a mark like a stampeding elephant.”

Behind him, closer than Pike expected, Spock said, “Indeed. The amount of macerated plant material will make this an easy task.”

“How are you that quiet? No, don’t answer that.”

“Sir,” Spock continued. “Those cadets with wilderness experience will be fully aware of how easily they can be tracked. How do you intend to delay the inevitable?”

Pike stepped down into the mess of torn vegetation. “You tell me, son.” He waited for Spock to follow. “They seem to have found the easiest to traverse route. Might as well use it.”

Spock proved easily capable of matching Pike’s best pace through the woods. “I have spent considerable time in the wilderness areas of Vulcan,” he noted. “Earth sports a terrain that is considerably more lush and,” here, he paused to consider his sap spattered hands, “moister than that to which I am accustomed.”

“I imagine,” Pike managed to huff out between breaths. The Vulcan’s ease on terrain that he admitted was not ideal for him caused Pike to push himself to the limit in an effort to, well, force Spock to make any kind of effort, yet the new minted graduate comported himself as though he were merely walking down a hallway at the Academy. At last, they reached the water at the same spot the cadets had, as evidenced by the crushed vegetation and a few places where cobbles had been moved such that the muddy stream bed could be seen. However, the signs telling him which way they had gone once they reached this spot were a little less obvious. There was more than one option, and all of the routes showed signs of recent travel.

He caught his breath, looking upstream, downstream, and across the water. “Spock, tell me. What were the cadets’ options, and which option did they choose?”

Spock walked up behind him, silent as a cat, as usual. “Sir. I would suggest at this moment,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper, “that we postpone our discussion until we resolve the issue of the black bear thirty meters upstream from our position.”

Pike glanced without moving. She was a shadow amongst the trees, big and black and as yet unconcerned, scratching herself to mark a tree recently broken off by a storm so that the top hung into the water, while the bottom eight feet or so of trunk still stood upright at the edge of the stream. “The cadets moved downstream,” he answered his own question. “That bear isn’t interested in us, we’re just going to move along, but keep an eye on it until we get a little further down.”

Spock nodded. Pike led the way along a narrow shelf overlooking the stream, which had grown swifter and deeper, growing from an idyllic place to bathe and collect water to a genuine hazard. Spock was walking mostly backward, a fact Pike found concerning, as they were on a narrow path slick with wet moss a few feet above water of uncertain depth, moving at high enough sped to be potentially hazardous. After the bear was obscured by another thirty meters or so of intervening terrain, he said. “OK, you can face forward now.”

“The bear will not follow?”

“Probably not. As long as we don’t bother it, it won’t bother us. We’re not on the menu.”

“The possibility that a creature that size would not pose a severe threat seems implausible to me.”

“Well, if we’d made it mad, we’d have had to stun it, for sure. But there’s plenty for it to eat around here this time of year and it tends to prefer smaller prey. It’s not going to risk snacking on us.”

Spock was silent for a time. “I wonder if you appreciate how tame is the world on which humanity evolved. On Vulcan, any of the larger predators would not be able to forgo a potential meal, simply because it was not its usual fare.”

“Point taken,” Pike said. They continued along the narrow natural trail for another couple of minutes. Pike kept an eye on the treeline overhanging their path, their encounter with the bear making him wary of the possibility of mountain lions, a much more serious threat.

“Sir,” Spock said. “Given that this exercise is primarily a test of the students’ mettle, perhaps our approach could be informed by psychological factors more than military verisimilitude.”

“What do you have in mind, Spock?”

“While at the Academy, I have occasionally been asked to engage in social activities, including the viewing of visual media. I have had the misfortune of viewing a number of works intended to produce intense fear, possibly in order to induce catharsis.”

“Horror movies.”

“Precisely. May I suggest employing certain common media tropes might heighten the intensity of the experience for the cadets, while allowing us to maintain a relatively close surveillance of them?”

“An interesting approach,” Pike said, encouraging Spock to continue. The Vulcan showed no sign of fatigue, while Pike himself was going to need to rest and drink, soon. He was covered in a layer of sweat that was slow to evaporate in the uncharacteristically humid air.

“I suggest we harass them. I can move quietly enough to enter their camp and remove or rearrange their belongings while they sleep. We can remove their sentries, one at a time, and strew their personal effects along their route. Keep them off balance, as you say.”

“An insightful suggestion,” Pike noted. He had spent only a little time before this with Spock. The younger man had just finished an uneventful cadet cruise on Pike’s ship, but had spent the bulk of his time ensconced in the science department, so Pike’s primary impression of him had come from the precisely written papers he had submitted over the course of the mission. The kid had a knack for scientific writing that exemplified both Vulcan precision and an accessibility he, as a historian rather than a hard scientist, appreciated immensely.

“Sir,” Spock said.

“Yes, Lieutenant?”

“Do you see this mark? Where the moss has been torn in a curved wedge from the edge of the trail?”

Pike returned to Spock’s position. “Someone fell in.” The marks beneath his feet were somewhat obscured by his own footsteps, but he could see two semicircular depressions right where the trailside dropped into the water. “And someone else jumped in after. Spock, pull up the cadets’ health monitors, would you?”

Spock propped himself against the steep hillside to pull his data pad out of his pack. “I have ten data sets here, nine green, one yellow.”

“One yellow?”

“Cadet Shaan is mildly hyperthermic.”

“Sounds like they managed to get out of the water, anyway. Keep me posted. Check in every half hour. If Shaan’s consistently in the yellow through the entire day, we may have to pull her from the simulation. Tomorrow promises to be even hotter than today.”

“And what then would be the consequences to her commission?”

“None. We reschedule her into an arctic simm this winter. A good thirty percent of the students will fail to complete, over half for reasons unrelated to performance. We run a second simm in the winter for those students who don’t finish enough of the first. To be honest, we should just put all the Andorian students into the winter simms--though we haven’t had a heat wave like this in a while.” He took a long drink from his canteen.

“I find it a pleasant change.”

Pike chuckled. “You would. Though you need to keep an eye on the humidity. If Shaan is accessible, we’ll take her out first.”

“A wise commanding officer will expect our action.”

“A wiser medic will preempt it at need. Let us see whether Daly and McCoy make the decision for us.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love comments...they let me know you're here, what you want to see more of...all that good stuff. (And I almost always respond)


	5. Complications

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pike and Spock catch up with the cadets.

It was Kirk’s turn to keep watch with Finnegan, while Saggda and Petrucci prepared three rabbits in the relative safety of their temporary camp. He left Finnegan to keep an eye out for danger while he roved a few meters downstream of their position, looking for pine, preferably with unfallen cones full of nuts. He found one, miraculously a bull pine, and took a moment to bless his luck and wonder if it were as unnaturally present as the feral hostas and he suspected, the cattails lining the water where it ran slower back near where they had landed. They could be invasive species, the result of centuries of human encroachment, or deliberate offerings subtly shifting the mix of plant life in this forest used as a training ground for decades. The edible species certainly ran thick on the ground here, from greens to roots to nuts and berries, so that the land resembled more a forest garden than a natural wood.

Most of the cones on or near the ground would be picked clean, so he leapt for a branch and swung his body up into the cover of the pine boughs, his bag still slung neatly over his shoulder. He squirmed his way up the tree, knowing the dense pine needles would keep him from being seen even if he climbed a considerable distance. But first, he settled in the crook of two branches near a cluster of large cones and began to pull them off the tree, one by one, and pick them apart to release the nuts into one of the waterproof bags in his satchel. 

He kept an eye on the time, planning to spend thirty minutes working, then climb higher to get a better look at the terrain, possibly spot their pursuers. It was slower work than he’d have liked, foraging always was, but the nuts would provide much needed calories that would travel better than rabbit meat. The thirty minutes up, he weighed his meager harvest in his hands, then made his way up the tree, sliding between branches. This kind of climbing had been so much easier when he was a child and could fit more easily into the tight spiral of pine boughs. He climbed as high as he dared, found a spot where the branches parted slightly to allow sunlight to stream in. The slight breeze made the air a little cooler and less oppressive than at ground level, though it was still easily thirty-five degrees and the humidity kept his sweat from cooling him as well as it might.

There was a low marsh area to the southeast, possibly a spot to fish and certainly to collect cattails and a few other wetland species. The forest grew thicker due east, though another rise, topped with a limestone outcropping promised both high ground and adequate cover, though the cliffs and caves near the stream provided better protection from the weather. He squinted across the stream. There was something unnatural about the position of some tree limbs near the water. It could be an artifact, left behind by a previous class, or something they had altered themselves while passing by that area—but as he watched, a figure dressed all in black, with black hair, so not Pike, walked quickly and with purpose to the waters edge to fill a canteen, then disappeared back into the trees.

Kirk slithered down the tree, dropped the last couple of meters, and landed in a crouch on the fragrant pine needles. It would take some time for them to cross and make their way to the cadets’ refuge, even if they left immediately, so he took the time to forage on his way back, not believing his luck when he stumbled upon a patch of chantarelles. Finnegan greeted him with a wave. “I spotted the guy traveling with Pike. They’re across the stream.”

“You recognize him?” Finnegan said. He peered into Kirk’s string bag, nodding his appreciation, but added, “Are you sure those are safe to eat?”

“No, he was too far away. All I can say is definitely male, tall, and black hair And yes, I can identify chantarelles. I will run a scanner over them before we eat them, though, to be sure.”

Are they coming for us?”

“I don’t think, yet, but I want to talk to Novotny about whether we should run or stand our ground here.”

Finnegan nodded. “Look what I found,” he added, opening his own string bag, which was full of bright yellow flowers. “Goldenrod. We can mash them up and make a paste, then package it and use slingshots shoot Pike and his buddy. Beat ‘em at their own game.”

“Homemade paintballs. Good idea,” Kirk said, genuinely impressed. “I’ll send a new partner out to keep watch with you. See if the two of you can think of some way to get whatever paint we can make into a missile.” He jogged back the last ten meters or so to their camp, the well trodden ground already resembling a sort of trail. He felt like he was half-swimming through the air, it was so thick.

“Novotny!” he shouted.

“What is it, Kirk?” she said, snapping off his name as though it amused her. She held out a hand for his canteen, filled it with fresh water from her own.

“Thanks,” Kirk said, taking a long swig. Bones and Turei joined them on seeing Kirk arrive. He filled them all in. “Pike and company are on the other side of the stream about two hundred meters upriver. I don’t know if they’re planning to cross right away. But they have to be able to tell where we were when we crossed, and from there we’ll be easy to find.”

“Options?”

McCoy shook his head. “First we gotta talk about Shaan. It’s supposed to stay bad like this overnight, we’ll be lucky if the temp drops below twenty-eight, and it may get up to thirty-eight tomorrow before the storms roll in.”

Kirk held up a hand to cut him off. “So if we try to bail out right now, in this heat,” he prompted.

“We can’t keep Shaan cool enough. This weather is five degrees warmer at least than usual for this area and it’s just not safe for her. I say we have her evacced.”

Novotny turned to McCoy. “What does she say?”

“What do you think she says? She’s pathologically stubborn. Thing is, if she overheats, she could develop arrhythmias and I can’t resuscitate her.”

“Why not?” Novotny asked.

“You can’t resuscitate Andorians. It’s a cultural imperative and for good reason. They don’t bounce back from hypoxia.”

Novotny spent a few moments with her head turned back toward the corner where Shaan was resting. “Understood. Kirk, stay or go, I’m ordering Shaan out of here. What do you and Turei think about whether we should try to stay ahead of Pike?”

“I say we fortify our position. We’re not likely to find anywhere this sheltered before dark,” Turei said.

Kirk nodded. “I could go either way. Finnegan found some goldenrod he’d like to make into paintballs so we can beat them at their own game. I’m tempted to move now, while we can. There’s a feeder stream coming down from that rise, the water will be cleaner and we’ll have the advantage of the high ground, maybe buy some time for Finnegan to work on the paintballs.”

Novotny bit her lip, considering. “Speaking of which, Finnegan shouldn’t be out there alone. Turei, replace Kirk on watch. We may have company soon. Everyone else, pack up. We’ll head out in twenty minutes.”

Turei strolled past Kirk toward where Finnegan would be keeping watch. Like all of them, he was moving more slowly than he should be and not just because of the heat. “We should eat the foraged food now,” he told Novotny. “So we don’t have to carry it.”

“Agreed.” She turned to look to the back of the cave, where Bones crouched over Shaan. “I have to give her the bad news before he tags her. Come along with me?”

“Yeah.”

Kirk followed Novotny to the back of the cave. Shaan was pulling on her clothes. “You’re treating me like I’m made of glass. I’m fine. I can handle it.”

Bones snapped back, “Well I can’t handle you dying on me, and when that storm system rolls in we might not have the option of beaming you out of here, so I’m calling it.”

“Novotny. Reza!” Shaan hissed, using the commanding cadet’s first name. “You have to let me do this. If this were a real mission…”

“If this were a real mission,” Novotny said, “You would have been sent down with cooling gear, or someone else would have been selected for the team. We’re all running fifteen degrees above comfortable here, you’re running thirty and you won’t be able to cool off at night.”

Shaan tried again. “If this were a real survival situation, not an exercise—”

Bones cut her off viciously. “You would die. And if you’re trapped here by an ion storm in this heat, I give you two days. One if you exert yourself.”

“It’s not fair.”

“They’ll just put you in the winter break group,” Kirk said. It’s not like you’ll get thrown out or anything.”

“It will look bad on my record.”

“Not listening to your medical officer will look bad on your record.” Bones held up the medical tag, ready to pin it to Shaan. “Don’t make me order you.”

Shaan snatched the medical tag out of his hands and smashed it onto her chest. It clung, held by a pressure clip. Bones thumbed the beacon on the clip. After a couple of seconds, Shaan said, “So?”

“It might take a minute for the tech on duty to pick you up.”

“Why even assign me this exercise if I wasn’t going to make it through?”

“It’s not usually this hot in this part of the country. I’m actually kind of surprised the weathersats haven’t…” Bones trailed off as the transporter caught Shaan up in its beam and she disappeared.

Novotny turned to the rest of the group. “Cadets Lim and Petrucci have made a meal for us. Eat quickly, we’re heading up to the ridge to stay ahead of Pike.”

Less Shaan, and less Finnegan and Turei, the seven of them made a meal of rabbit, boiled greens, and mashed roots that, with judicious application of Kirk’s spices, bore a passable resemblance to colcannon. Kirk offered up the raspberries for dessert. He estimated they each had gotten a couple hundred calories at most, but it would have to hold them until they made the high ground. He made sure to save out a serving each for Finnegan and Turei. 

“We’ll collect Finnegan and Turei on our way out. Gather your stuff, everyone.” Novotny collected the pack Shaan had left behind. They hauled themselves to their feet and paired off, Novotny leading as the odd person out, Kirk taking up the rear with Bones. They made it the few paces to where Turei and Finnegan were supposed to be keeping watch. Turei jogged toward them. “Finnegan’s gone,” he said.

“What do you mean, gone?” Kirk said.

“He sent me to forage for a bit. When I got back, he was gone. I’ve been waiting maybe five minutes, in case he had to, you know, duck behind a tree or something.”

Kirk turned to Turei, realized he was shutting Novotny out of the conversation, and deliberately took her arm to draw her in. “Finnegan can be an ass, but he wouldn’t leave his post when he knew Pike could be coming. Which way did you come from?”

Turei pointed. Kirk and Novotny followed his finger. Novotny took a few steps in that direction. “Here,” she said. “Someone grabbed him, dragged him off. You didn’t hear him cry out or anything?”

Turei shook his head. “Not a sound. If Pike had hit him with a paintball, you know he’d have sworn enough to peel the bark off the trees.”

“Could have knocked him out,” Lim suggested.

“Would they do that? I mean, they wouldn’t want to injure us, would they? Not for real.” Novotny considered the broken and crushed vegetation that indicated a brief struggle. “No blood at least.”

“Two of them working together might be able to subdue one of us fast enough that we couldn’t call for help.” Lim thought about it. “I mean, there are ways to knock somebody out fast that wouldn’t kill them.”

“Think they have hyposprays on them?” Turei said. “That would be cheating, I’d think.”

“Maybe we should get back to the shelter,” Kirk suggested.

Novotny slapped him on the arm. “Agreed. We need more intel on where Pike and his friend are and what they’re up to. Circle up everybody, cover your partners and lets get back to the shelter.”

They had almost made it back to the shelter, a distance of only a few dozen steps after all, when a faint pop, followed by, “Merda!” stopped them.

“Hit the deck!” Kirk shouted, only a fraction of a second before Novotny.

A couple more pops followed, splattering the tree trunks above them with yellow. Kirk tapped Lim’s shoulder and pointed to the shelter, whispering, “Stay low.” 

He followed Lim, catching Daly and Turei along the way. “Petrucci’s hit,” Bones hissed. “I’m going after him.”

“Where’s he hit?”

“Low on the left, just above the hip bone. I won’t know how bad it is until I scan him.”

Another paintball struck crossed branches about a foot above their heads. “We can’t risk it,” he told Bones.

“If he were really bleeding to death out there, would you say that?”

Kirk winced. “Yeah, I would. You go out there now, you’re gonna get hit.”

“It’s too easy for you to say that because it’s not real.”

It took all of Kirk’s self control to keep his voice pitched low. “You think I haven’t made this decision before? For real? It sucks. Just be glad that if Petrucci doesn’t make it he’s going home to a hot meal and a critique of his inability to duck fast enough.”

Bones let Kirk grab his shoulder and drag him back toward the shelter wall. Kirk counted heads quickly. Bones, Daly, Lim, Novotny, Turei, Saggda, and himself. Petrucci still out there, and Finnegan missing. That made nine. “All right, I say we use rocks as cover fire. There’s a whole bunch of sharp limestone. If four of us line up and throw along the path, we can clear a way for McCoy. Doctor, can you still see him?”

“They haven’t dragged him off, if that’s what you mean,” Bones said. “I’ll go fast, get my scan. If he’s alive, I’ll signal for Turei to help me get him back.”

Novotny turned to Kirk. “Your assessment?” 

“It’s a pretty high risk save, but I think it’s worth a shot.”

Lim raised a hand. “You don’t have to do that,” Novotny told her.

Lim swallowed and said, “Are we allowed to throw rocks at the instructor?”

“Well, it’s not like they left us any weapons. If they’re smart, they’ll be wearing protective gear,” Novotny said.

“I hope they’re smart,” Lim answered her. They each collected as many of the disc shaped stones that had flaked off the wall of their shelter as they could carry, then made a ring around Bones, who commando crawled his way toward Petrucci. Pike, or his companion, only got off one shot before the barrage of limestone chips silenced them. Bones crouched in front of Petrucci for a few seconds, then waved Turei in.

They all retreated for the safety of their stone shelter, followed by a few more pops. “I’m hit!” Turei said, hitting the ground as the rules required. Kirk and Lim rushed forward to help. Kirk grabbed Petrucci under the arms and spared a second to glance at Turei, who sported a “wound” in the lower leg.

“You can scoot on that if you don’t bear weight on it. Only a couple more meters,” he urged.

Once they were under cover, Novotny, Daly, and Saggda stopped their barrage. Novotny and Kirk kept watch in case their pursuers took a run at the shelter. Petrucci lay down on the mossy ground, close to the rock wall. “Am I dead?” he said.

“Not yet,” Bones said. “Daly, any real injuries?”

There was a murmur of noes from everyone, which Daly passed on to Bones. “All right then, you take the leg wound.” Daly passed the scanner over Turei’s leg, muttering about his repeated tendency to get injured. 

Bones frowned into his own medscanner. “You lost a lot of blood before I got to you, Petrucci. Now, I can’t send you back for a pretend injury. What you have here, officially, is a disruptor graze. I’ve got you stable for now, and I can repair some of the damage with what’s in my kit, but best case scenario you’re unconscious for at least a day, if you survive the blood loss. And you won’t be able to walk until the end of the exercise. He paused. “Don’t talk, by the way, you’re unconscious.” 

He tapped the scanner. “A positive. Guess today’s your lucky day. I can transfuse with stuff in my kit. I’ll just use myself. Fortunately we don’t really have to do it, just say we did, but I’m going to give you a liter and who else is A positive, here?”

“I am,” Kirk said, followed by Turei and Novotny.

“All right, Turei’s hurt, Novotny’s in command, so Jim, you’re my donor.”

“Do I need to come over there?”

“Yeah, you have to put your fingerprint in the box and hold it there for ten minutes, once I’m through. Daly, what’s the word on Turei’s leg?”

Daly didn’t answer. “I don’t understand these readings,” she said.

Bones looked up from his data pad. “Can it wait?”

“I don’t think so.”

Kirk sat crosslegged next to Petrucci, thumb pressed to a large red square in the center of the data pad. Petrucci’s side was splashed with fluorescent yellow paint, but it did not take much imagination to turn that yellow to arterial red in his mind’s eye.

“Don’t take your thumb off the square, Jim,” Bones said, then scooted over to take a look at Daly’s pad. “Damn!” he shouted. His fingers flew over the pad, pressing buttons. He pantomimed tying something around Turei’s leg, letting the medscanner see his actions. “Daly, do you have transfusion equipment in your kit?”

“It’s a standard issue medkit for a Corpsman.”

“Then you do. It’s a damn good thing everybody but Saggda’s A or O. You’re O, right, Daly?”

“Yeah.”

“Put your thumb in the square, just like I told Kirk, and leave it there.” He handed her back her own data pad.

“What’s wrong?” Turei said.

“Shut up, you’re dead. I think I can get you back, though.” He pulled out the cardiac stimulator and hit it once. Then a second time.

“What happened?”

“You got your foot blown off. And then you bled out because I didn’t think an ankle wound was serious. Also, shut up.” He ran the medscanner over Turei again, swore, and hit the cardiac stimulator a third time. He had to tilt the medscanner and look around Daly’s thumb to see the results. “There we go,” he muttered. 

“It was my fault, sir,” Daly said. Her voice sounded strained, like she was holding back tears.

“Congratulations, Turei, you officially have a blood pressure,” Bones said. He took a moment to squeeze Daly’s arm. “No, I’m the highest ranking medical officer. I should have made sure you could read the scanner results for the sim. They don’t quite look like the real thing.”

Turei interrupted, “So I’m going to live?”

“Shut up,” Bones told him again. “Jim, how’s Petrucci doing? Talk to me.”

“I don’t know how to find that on the data pad without stopping the transfusion.”

Bones leaned across Petrucci’s body to carefully tilt the scanner toward himself, tapped in a couple of places near the edge of the screen, then released it to Kirk to hold. “I think we’re going to have to go with two units each. Lim, you’ll be next once Kirk gives his liter. I’ll give a second to Turei.”

“Yes, sir.”

Bones sat back on his haunches to watch the image of Turei on Daly’s medscanner around her thumb. Kirk craned his neck to look, but Bones turned the medscanner so he couldn’t see, carefully holding Daly’s thumb in place. “There’s an enhanced image of what the injury would look like if it were real. You don’t need to look at that.”

“If this were real, I would be looking at it.” Bones pressed his lips together in disapproval, but turned the scanner to display the image of Turei’s leg, the foot nearly amputated and the bottom of the stump burned red and black. Kirk turned away, saliva filling his mouth, to breathe slowly and deliberately through the nausea. He couldn’t afford to throw up their meager meal now.

“Shoulda listened to your doctor,” Bones said. “I’m going to have to amputate that foot.”

“What?” Turei said, alarmed.

“Shut up, you’re unconscious.” Bones said again. “Pretend amputate. It will be a virtual surgery on the data pad. I’ll have to walk through it like it’s real with the same chance for mistakes. He could still die.”

“What are his chances?” Kirk asked. At that moment the little square he had his thumb on turned green.

“A little better than fifty-fifty. But we’re going to be stuck here for at least a couple of days. We won’t be able to move these two.” Bones looked up. “Novotny, can you take watch for Saggda? I need to check her arm. Jim, you can hand me the scanner now.”

Novotny crossed the shelter to tap Saggda on zer good shoulder, then took zer place. Saddga settled crosslegged next to Bones, who carefully removed zer sling, flipped his data pad to show reality rather than the sim, and ran the scanner over zem. “You’re looking good. You want to move your arm through its range of motion?”

Saggda straightened her arm, lifted it over her head, and moved it slowly back and forth, wincing a couple of times. “I think it’s just stiff from being in the sling,” she said.

“Light duty only,” Bones told her, then turned back to Turei. “I want his vitals stabilized, then I’ll start the surgery. We’re going to lose light soon.” He handed his pad to Lim. “Thumb in the center of the red square until it turns green. Stay within one meter of Petrucci.”

“Yes, sir,” she said.

“Saggda, take Novotny’s place and have her get over here.” The two cadets changed places. Daly’s pad indicated he transfusion was complete, so McCoy took it from her and started a second from himself, left thumb pressed to the data pad.

“Our only chance is to take Pike and his buddy out,” Kirk told Novotny. “Otherwise he’ll just pick us off one by one when we go out to forage. And we can’t survive here for another what is it? Twelve days on what we have.”

“Throwing rocks isn’t going to cut it,” she said. “We’ve got six able bodied people. You, me, Lim, Saggda, Daly, and Dr. McCoy. McCoy’s going to be taking care of the wounded most of the time, so that leaves five.”

“I could find them and kill them if I had to,” Kirk said, though he wasn’t quite sure that was true. If they were ordinary criminals or the kind of desperate men who had hunted him—he forced the thought down. “Neutralizing them without killing them is going to be hard, especially since we’re stuck with what we have with us. Do we have anything we can use to make a yellow dye now that Finnegan and his goldenrod are gone?”

Novotny looked around. “We can scan the plant life and see. Green would be easy.”

A laugh spluttered out from Kirk’s lips. “Maybe we’re lucky and he’s hunting us down with a Vulcan.”

“That would not be lucky,” Novotny noted.

“You’re probably right.” A Vulcan, with his greater speed and endurance and more acute senses would make life harder, not easier.

“There is another problem,” Novotny noted.

“What’s that?”

“The storms are predicted to bring down enough water to cause some flooding along streams and riverbanks. Including this one. We need to plan to be out of here by about 36 hours from now. Pike or no Pike.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I'm late. Semesters happen. I'm going to try to hold myself to a Monday update schedule, but I can't promise anything.


	6. A Really Short Fight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kirk and Novotny disagree about how best to take the battle to the enemy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to 3DBABE1999 for a good catch. While I may not agree with everything they said, I do agree on reflection that Spock wouldn't have nerve pinched anybody for a sim, regardless of any other specifics. And once something gets under my skin like that, I have to fix it if I can. (As yet unrepaired clunky narrative at the beginning of The Kind of Man Your Are notwithstanding.) I decided the best way to resolve the issue was to truncate the end of this chapter and place the next scene, however it plays out, at the beginning of chapter 7.

Six of them ate Shaan’s biscuits. Turei and Petrucci, being “unconscious,” were not allowed to eat, though both were allowed water. Both young men then lay back on the floor of their shelter in enforced silence. Bones left his post at Turei’s side to approach Kirk and Novotny where they stood, faces pointing out into the dense forest, though the visibility was so poor they were listening more than watching. The shadows of the trees were growing darker and longer, their surroundings dim and green as the sun sank in the sky. 

Kirk turned to him. “You should operate while you have light.”

Bones nodded. “You two going after Pike?”

Novotny nodded. “You know that makes you the ranking officer while we’re gone.”

“And if you don’t come back.”

Novotny acknowledged the possibility with a grim smile. “Keep a close eye on the storm. Make for the high ground as soon as the gods,” she chucked her chin toward the sky, “I mean our evaluators, tell you it’s safe to move the guys.”

“I’m no woodsman. I’m no good at orienteering in this kind of terrain.”

Kirk grabbed his shoulder. “Get good. Rely on Lim. She may not look like much, but she knows her way around the woods.” 

“And give yourself twelve hours before the leading edge of the storm, even if the guys aren’t supposed to be moved. Storm’s supposed to hit in 28-32 hours, so that means you go in the morning,” Novotny said. 

“They definitely won’t be allowed to be moved by then.” Bones paused. “You know we’re going to have to stop playing along when the weather starts to move in anyway. There aren’t enough of us to carry them as far as we have to go.”

“We keep it up as long as we can,” Novotny said. “Chances are they’re going to bail and beam all of us out tomorrow anyway.”

Bones caught Kirk by the shoulder to look in his eyes. “You doing okay?”

Because it was Bones who asked, Kirk took a moment to take stock of himself before responding. It surprised him a little how quickly he fell back into the habit of ignoring hunger, though when he thought about it, the sensation had merely transformed in his mind to a vague sense of agitation and dread. He doubted his judgment was clouded any more than the rest of theirs, though. “No, but I’m doing my job,” Kirk told him.

“Hmph.” Bones squeezed his arm before returning to sit beside Turei and pull up his data pad to complete the simulated surgery.

Kirk watched him for a minute before turning back to Novotny. If she were injured or captured on his watch, he worried he might be too compromised to act. “I’m better at sneaking around in the woods than you are. I should do this myself.”

“Nope,” she said, not for the first time.

“I’ve only got one set of night vision goggles, and I don’t think we can wait until dawn.”

Lim approached them. “I have night vision goggles,” she said, handing a set to Novotny. Trust Lim to miss his not-so-subtle cues. “You should not go out there alone at night, either of you.”

“Thanks, Lim,” Novotny told her, beaming. She shot a triumphant look at Kirk. “You were saying?”

“Can you move quietly?”

“Not as quietly as you. So, maybe I flush them out and you hit them. Are you going to use the atlatl?”

Kirk shook his head. “I don’t think I’ll get a clear sight line. I’m going for short range with the slingshot and the rapier.”

“A stick with a bag of curry tied to it is not a rapier,” Novotny scoffed.

Lim spluttered a laugh. Kirk glared at her. “Well, what would you call it? I can’t believe I’m using up my good spices to make a weapon anyway.”

“Speaking of spice weapons, are the bags for the pepper done?”

Kirk nodded. “I made them out of some gauze from Bones’ kit. They should be a good close range weapon. I’m going to wear them like brass knuckles and save some to drop on them. People never look up. It’s easy to just drop down and slit their—” Kirk stopped himself. “Not like I’m planning to slit any throats, of course.”

Lim swallowed. “You some kind of commando in a former life?”

“Sort of, yeah,” Kirk breathed. He needed to walk away from this conversation, right now. He took a few steps away from the two women, braced his hands on his knees and leaned forward for a moment to wait for his head to clear. He really wanted to go for a run until his head emptied out. Kirk knew the precise location and amount of every edible item in the shelter, including the bags of oyster crackers Lim hadn’t mentioned to anyone but him, and by knew he meant that each commanded a non-negligible fraction of his available focus when he needed his full attention on taking out Pike and his companion.

He stole a glance at Bones, buried in his data pad, trying to make up for a mistake he surely considered entirely his own fault. Daly sat between Turei and Petrucci, monitoring each on her own data pad. There was no way he could ask for help now. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled at the soft footfall behind him. Didn’t Novotny know when not to sneak up on somebody?

“Kirk,” she said, her voice gratingly soft. “You’re barely holding it together now. I can’t let you go out there by yourself.”

It was the worst possible thing she could have said, in the worst possible way. He spun on his left foot to face her and leaned in so close his nose almost brushed hers. “Get away from me,” he growled.

She flinched backwards. Her chest heaved with the first few breaths until she regained her composure. She looked him in the eye. “You are compromised, Cadet Kirk. Hunt’s off. We’re not going anywhere.”

“The hell I’m not,” he told her. He stalked to the boundary between their shelter and the forest beyond, shed his bag with the precious forage and energy bars inside, gathered his makeshift weapons into his hands and pockets, and slipped through a clump of ferns into the forest before Novotny or anyone else could order him not to. He heard her swear behind him, but he planned to be out of sight and beyond her ability to track him before she could gather her own things. She wasn’t much of a tracker, and Turei and Petrucci were out of commission for the rest of the trip.

He was so pissed he never saw the weight that dropped on him from above, but his reflexes kicked in and he flattened himself to the ground, skidded, and sprung to his feet, his rapier held out in front of him. Between the dirty, desperate battles of his childhood, the bar fights of his youth, and the single minded attention he’d given to the six weeks of defensive training he’d already gotten at the academy, he should be able to take whoever this was easily.

Then he saw the pointed ears and realized why the man had felt so heavy for his size. He didn’t have a chance. The Vulcan regarded his weapon, his face of course betraying no expression. He ought to explain. “It’s a rapier. The curry powder counts as a strike. We weren’t issued paint balls.”

“I do not choose to acknowledge a hit from your ersatz weapon,” he said. He chose that moment to rush Kirk, apparently discounting the wad of gauze in Kirk’s left hand. Kirk tossed the stick aside and brought up his left hand, not needing to make good contact, just to strike enough of a glancing blow to drive fine ground pepper into his opponent’s eyes. The Vulcan grunted and raised an arm to wipe his eyes, giving Kirk an opening to hit the ground and roll.

A rock a little larger than his fist dug its point into his shoulder blades and he was forcibly reminded of the difference between fighting on a training mat and fighting on uneven terrain. He skidded a couple of meters downhill on dew slicked undergrowth, got his feet under him and swung a little wildly at the looming Vulcan, who evaded him with embarrassing ease. Kirk dropped low and swept out a foot, which finally connected, sending his opponent sprawling. He hooked one of the man’s legs with his own and whipped his arm over to scatter pepper in his eyes, earning a grunt of pain and a moment’s distraction in which he tried to scrabble away, realizing that with no real weapons to speak of, there was no way to incapacitate a man who was likely three times stronger than he was without doing him serious harm. 

A shriek, high and feminine at two o’clock made him turn his head. His opponent took advantage of his distraction to hasten the end of the fight, Dropping to straddle Kirk's back, facing his feet, so his knees forced Kirk's hands to his sides--and making it clear just how much stronger he really was, he efficiently bound Kirk's legs just below the knee, then collected both arms and slapped restraints on them as well. He hoisted Kirk over his shoulder like a sack of resisting potatoes and carried him off through the trees.


	7. Calling Time Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kirk is held prisoner by Lieutenant Spock.

Kirk spent an inordinate amount of time looking at the small of the Vulcan’s back as he was carried through the woods. The position he had been placed in and the encroaching darkness made it hard to see where he was being taken. He could see the ground beneath his captor’s feet, and when he raised his head he caught glimpses of where they had been, but every time he did raise his head, he was shifted so that his head bumped back down again against the man’s shoulder blades or spine. At least wherever they were going was never out of earshot of the water, so when he escaped, which he fully intended to do, he could find his way by following the river downstream.

“What’s your name?” Kirk asked, his voice strained from the difficulty drawing a full breath while his chest and diaphragm were jammed into his captor’s shoulder blades.

“I have no reason to provide any information.” The instructor had an unbearably smug voice. Raspy, though, as though carrying him were difficult. Kirk supposed even Vulcan strength must have limits.

“Really,” Kirk said. “Are you enjoying this?”

“Irrelevant.”

“You know, it isn’t really fair, you being what, three times stronger than me.”

“You will encounter opponents stronger than you when you serve. Humans are not the weakest species in the Federation, but you are in the bottom half. Learn to compensate.”

“Thanks for reminding me.” He spent a little more time trying not to stare at his captor’s butt. Well, it was right there. 

“Thanks are not required.” Something about the other man’s voice bothered him. A sort of grating, bubbly sound under the otherwise pleasant tenor.

He needed to regain some dignity. “Humans are in the top five percent for throwing. And long distance running. Right up with you.” 

“Then perhaps you should have run.” The ground beneath them changed from crushed vegetation to packed earth and flat stone. His captor lifted him easily off his shoulder to deposit him with his back against the side of another outcropping of stone. Next to him sat the bound form of Finnegan, who appeared to be dozing. “Rise and shine,” Kirk said, poking at Finnegan with his knee.

The Vulcan took a few steps away from them and stretched briefly, arms over his head, then turned his head from side to side to work the kinks out. It must not be that easy to carry him what was it, half a mile or so? On this hilly terrain. He turned away to cough, then folded himself into a tidy, kneeling posture on the ground where he could observe them both.

“Where’s Novotny?” Kirk asked.

The Vulcan ignored him.

“He always this good company?” Kirk said,this time to Finnegan.

Finnegan shrugged. “Pretty much. I get fed regularly, though.”

Kirk’s stomach growled at the mention of food, and that sent his brain curving backward with little to distract it. He wriggled so that the sharp pebbles beneath him dug even more unpleasantly into his butt for a distraction and flattened his fingers against his palms to try to feel the restraints at his wrists, but was unable to touch anything but the fraying cuffs of his uniform. “You seen Pike?”

“Nope,” Finnegan said, popping the “P” insolently.

Kirk shoved at Finnegan’s leg with his knee again in an attempt to get him to turn away so he could see the kind of restraint they had on. The ones on his legs were standard Starfleet issue safety restraints, and he suspected the ones clasped to his arms just above the wrists were as well. He’d put some effort into learning how to subvert those restraints because reasons and if he got even a little privacy he might be able to get Finnegan’s off him.

Finnegan, unfortunately, did not take the nonverbal hint. “Turn that way,” Kirk whispered, finally.

“Be silent and stay in your places,” Spock said.

“Or what?”

The Vulcan regarded both of them blandly. “If you remain quiet and still,” he paused here to cough wetly, “in thirty minutes I will provide you with rations. If you do not, I will separate you.” 

Which would make it harder for them to free themselves later. Kirk remained still, as required, and wondered how he was going to eat with his hands bound. Their captor maintained his graceful repose on the ground, eyes open but fixed on a spot on the wall between Finnegan and Kirk, hands resting lightly on his knees. Probably meditating, but almost certainly not deeply enough to be unaware of Kirk and Finnegan. Kirk could hear him breathing, a faint, crackling sound. In the thirty minutes before he stirred, he had four coughing fits.

When he finally moved, it startled Kirk enough that he flinched. Finnegan snickered, but forced the laugh down after a moment when the Vulcan glared at him. Their captor rummaged through his pack to produce dark green wrapped ration bars. He unwrapped one partway and walked over to kneel in front of Kirk. “Attempt to harm me and there will be consequences.”

Kirk shook his head. “Feed him first.”

The Vulcan turned that sharp gaze on him again for a count of three, then turned to Finnegan. “As you wish. Cadet Finnegan, if you attempt to bite me this time I will not feed you again.”

“You could just untie my hands, or let me move them around to the front so I could feed myself,” Finnegan suggested.

“I am not a fool, cadet. You lost the privilege of feeding yourself when you attacked me last time.” He held the ration bar out to Finnegan, still positioned between the two bound men.

Finnegan leaned forward to rip a bit off with his teeth. As close as they all were to each other, Kirk could hear Spock’s breaths, louder than a human’s would have been. He couldn’t imagine that was normal for Vulcans, breathing so loudly. “Are you okay?” he asked.

“I do not appreciate you feigning concern for me as a distraction.” He continued to hold out the bar to Finnegan, turning it inside its wrapper so that his fingers never touched the bar itself or any part of Finnegan. For a couple of breaths he grew louder still, the sound the unmistakable exaggeratedly deep, harsh breaths used to ease a tickle in the lungs before it became a cough.

“Well, I don’t think it’s fair that you and Pike set up this whole scenario so you can hit us so easily and none of us can fight back at all.”

“You will, as I have mentioned, encounter situations in which you are heavily outclassed. You must learn to improvise.”

“I tried.”

“Your weapon was ridiculous.” The Vulcan turned away from Finnegan and Kirk for a moment to retrieve a second ration bar.

“I thought it reflected the spirit of the exercise.”

“Captain Pike will adjudicate the legality of your weapon when he arrives.”

“Fat lot of good that does me now.” He paused to adjust his position against the wall so his shoulders were less strained. “Will you let me to be bound in the front so I can feed myself? I won’t attack you.”

His captor took another one of those deliberately deep breaths. He carefully rewrapped the ration bar and placed it on a small stone beside Kirk. “Very well,” he said, his tone weary. Weary of his chatter or was he more than just a little ill? “Turn around.”

Kirk wriggled so his back faced the Vulcan, who first gripped the sleeves of his uniform at the elbows tightly to bring them together behind him to forestall any efforts at escape, then sent the code from his comlink to release the cuffs. He flipped Kirk back around, collected both arms while Kirk was pressed hard against the rock wall, and recuffed him, all in less than five seconds. Kirk hadn’t been planning to resist, yet, but he doubted he could have broken free had he wanted to. He took a moment to glance down at the cuffs. Starfleet standard issue restraints, just like the ones on his legs. Good. He took the ration bar and raised his joined hands to his mouth to eat, forcing himself to do so one small bite at a time while watching their captor.

He was sure there was something seriously wrong now. The Vulcan, and he really wished he knew the man’s name so he could call him something else in his head, sat back on the ground, his arms dangling limp over his knees for a full minute, eyes fixed on the wall, shallow, rapid breaths rattling in his chest loud enough that even Finnegan noticed, at least Kirk assumed that’s why the other cadet jogged his elbow with his shoulder and chucked his chin in the man’s direction. He scooted backward to his former resting place rather than standing and walking this time, but reassumed the meditative posture he had taken before their meager meal.

“Does Pike know you’re sick?” Kirk said.

“I inhaled a small amount of water while crossing the river. I will recover in time.”

“You sound like you’re getting worse, not better. Call Pike.” He felt like he was wearing Bones’ hat, but he wasn’t interested in having this guy keel over on him either.

“Unnecessary. Captain Pike will return in the morning. I can supervise the two of you until then.”

“What time is it?”

“I suggest you use what you know to deduce the answer to your question.”

He guessed it was between 2000 and 2100 hours, based on how long it seemed to have been since sunset. So, assuming morning meant sunup, and sunup was around 0515, that would mean waiting around here with a Vulcan who seemed to be getting sicker while he watched for eight or nine more hours. Longer if morning meant sometime after dawn. He was definitely getting himself and Finnegan out of these restraints as fast as possible.

“Finnegan?” Kirk said.

“What?”

He chucked his head at the Vulcan, who was now seated back in the same meditative posture as before, though his hands were now folding in his lap. “You think he looks sick, right?”

Finnegan shrugged. “I don’t know, maybe he just has a cold or something.”

Kirk wondered if his fellow cadet had hit his head or been lobotomized in the last six hours or so. He tried again, more pointedly. “Don’t you think he ought to call Pike and let him know what’s up?” 

Another noncommittal shrug. “I’m sure he can handle it himself.”

Kirk fell back against the stone behind him. He resisted the urge to bang his head against it a couple more times in frustration. Finnegan must be hoping to escape once their captor was too weak to recapture them, and Pike returning would make that impossible. “Finnegan,” he said again.

“What?”

“Never mind.”

He sat for another hour or so. Their captor rose to patrol the area every fifteen minutes, each time punctuating the effort with deep, rattling coughs. When he rested, they were smaller and more controlled, but still coming frequently. “You’re not going to be able to hide that cough from Pike, you know,” Kirk said. “He’s not going to be happy that you didn’t call him.”

The next time he stood, he took a few steps and had to stop to lean against the rock wall, wheezing and hacking. Kirk heard him spit. In a minute he straightened and said, “I will call Captain Pike.” He slid down the wall to a seated position. “As soon as I catch my breath.”

The pack, with the communicator in it, was a few meters away, next to where he sat to meditate. “What’s your name?” Kirk tried one more time.

“Spock,” he wheezed. “Lieutenant Spock.”

Kirk’s assessment of the gravity of the situation increased. “Look, Lieutenant Spock. Sir. I think you should remove my restraints. I’ll get the comm out of your bag for you.”

There was a too long silence. “You’ll run.”

“Fuck no I won’t. Is there something we can do to, I don’t know, call time out? Because I’m calling time out.”

Spock tried to stand, a little at a time, using the wall as a support. He’d gone from carrying Kirk over his shoulder for at least half a mile to barely able to move in what? Four hours? Five at the outside? At that rate he could be dead by morning, maybe. Kirk didn’t really know. He wished Bones were here. Spock sagged back down the wall, dragging all the way so his shirt rode up under his armpits. “I just need a moment,” he said.

Kirk almost demanded he be released, but realized that Spock could not make it the three meters to where he and Finnegan sat, even using the wall for support. “I’m getting out of these restraints. Can you tell me the instructor code for the comms and data pads?”

Spock didn’t answer. Kirk craned his neck to see. In the dimness, he could just see the instructor’s form slumped against the wall. “Spock, say something if you’re conscious.”

“I am conscious.”

“I’m getting out of these restraints. Thanks for moving them to the front for me.”

“I suspected.” Another long pause. “You had an ulterior motive.”

“Always.” Kirk had the cuffs up to his mouth. He needed to move the catches just—so—and then they would be slightly exposed. It took several tries and nearly thirty minutes. They kept slipping back into the protective covers as soon as he stopped biting on them. That was to be expected, the only reason they stayed exposed was if the material they were made of became fatigued from wear. So he kept biting at them, all the while listening to the labored breathing of the instructor just beyond his reach. Finally, the tiny phalanges stuck out just enough. He moved his arms down to the stone floor, just behind his bound ankles, lifted both feet at once, and slammed then down on his wrists, wincing. No dice, and the catches had slipped back into their housing. He tried again.

He pulled his knees to his chest and pressed his wrists against the ground, loose catch side up, then brought his heels down on the cuffs as hard as he could in that position. It wasn’t hard enough to break the catch. “Finnegan?”

“What?”

“I need you to slam your feet down on my cuffs. Hard.” He pulled the catch out again with his teeth, ignoring the scrapes where the cuffs had slid when he hit them the first time, then put them in front of Finnegan’s feet. 

Finnegan shrugged. “All right.” He slammed his feet down. Kirk grunted as something went seriously wrong with his left pinky finger.

“Again.”

“This isn’t going to work.”

“I’ve done it before. It works.” He pulled the catch out one more time, noting that it jiggled in its slot.

“All right.” Finnegan’s tone was dubious.

The second hit was much more painful than the first, coming down on a finger that was probably already broken, but the cuffs popped open. “Yeeeeah!” he yelled, a combination of pent up pain and triumph. “See! I told you.”

He crawled to Spock’s bag with his left hand tucked next to his body, not wanting to deal with whatever he’s done to his pinky finger yet. He rifled through it with his good hand until he found the comlink, then crawled to where Spock lay, eyes wide open, lips parted to help bring in a little more air. “Do you have an emergency beam out beacon in your bag?” he asked.

“Yes.”

Kirk didn’t wait until he could free his legs. He crawled back to the bag and searched it, finally finding four of them tucked into an outer pocket. Kirk pulled one out. It was a slightly raised button with a pinch clip on the back. 

He crawled back to where Spock sat hunched against the wall, dragging the pack behind him. “I need your comm code.”

“Give me the comm.”

Kirk passed it to him. He flipped it open and said, “Pike. Captain Pike.” He stopped to cough again. There was no answer.

“Give me your comm code so I can unlock our cuffs, then I’m getting you out of here.”

“Very well. Lieutenant Spock Alpha Niner Delta Six. Add Cadet James Kirk to authorized users.” He coughed again, doubling over around his chest, his face crumpling.

Kirk pressed the emergency beacon to Spock’s back, making sure it clicked into place. He pressed down on the center until it lit up red, indicating the signal had been sent. As with Shaan, nothing happened for a minute or so. Unlike with Shaan, one minute was followed by another. The red light on the button began to blink. “What does blinking mean?” He said.

Spock didn’t answer for an inordinate amount of time. Finally, he said, “Signal failure.”

That was two failures. “I’m going to try to call Bones.”

Kirk entered McCoy’s code into Spock’s comlink and waited. Nothing. They all had comlinks, but weren’t answering them because it could so easily be a trap. Dammit. While he was digging around for Spock’s data pad, he also pulled out a pair of flares, a flashlight, and a roll of blaze orange marking tape. The data pad responded to his name and code, fortunately, and the override allowed him to tap out a message to Bones.

**Bones, I got a sick Vulcan here. I need help.**

Nothing. He must need to prove who he was.

**You threw up on me in the shuttle on our first day.**

Still nothing. A tiny red dot flashed in the top right corner of the data pad. No signal. How was that possible? “Spock, we’re not getting any long range signals.” That meant they couldn’t raise Pike or McCoy on their comms, the emergency beacon wasn’t reaching the relay station, and now the data links wouldn’t work either. 

“That should not be possible.”

He handed Spock the data pad. “See what you can do. What position gets you the most air?”

“I believe—” More coughing, with a whistling noise as he drew breath at the end. “I believe if I were propped at an angle.” He illustrated with his hand, held flat and tilted at a forty five degree angle.

Kirk looked around. The only thing he could really prop Spock up on is his pack, if he set it against the stone wall. He pulled it flush with the wall, moving awkwardly since he hadn’t had a chance to remove the ankle restraints. “Hey, sir,” he said.

“Yes?”

“Can you remove my leg restraints? I can do Finnegan’s with your code, send him for help.”

Spock coughed, weaker this time, but more bubbly. “Put your legs across my lap.”

Kirk sensed this was not the time to voice any of the really good jokes that immediately came to mind. He lay his ankles gingerly across Spock’s lap, then hopped to his feet as soon as the restraints popped open. He arranged the pack so it leaned against the wall to make a slightly angled back rest, removing a handful of ration bars and the first aid kit first. “All right, I’m going to move you now.”

“Understood.”

Kirk remembered enough to grab the Vulcan over his clothes, but he ended up having to pull Spock forward into an almost-hug, the heavier body offering no resistance. He pivoted Spock onto the improvised back rest, making sure his head was supported by a curl of padded strap. His thumb accidentally brushed just in front of one pointed ear and Spock flinched away and sucked air in through his teeth. “Sorry,” Kirk said.

“It is of no consequence.” The movement triggered another coughing fit.

“I’m going to free Finnegan.”

Spock nodded slightly. “The release code for the cuffs is programmed into the comlink now.” Kirk walked to where Finnegan sat, arms and legs still bound. He transmitted the code from Spock’s comlink into the sensor on each of the restraints and they popped open. Finnegan stood to swing his arms in circles, massaged his wrists, and stomped the pins and needles out of his feet. Kirk said, “Get back to the camp. You think you can find us here?”

Finnegan pulled out his own data pad. “All the satellite data’s off.”

“Do you know how to use an old style compass?”

“Not around here. Where’s magnetic North from here?”

“Brazil I think.(1) Here’s a roll of marking tape. Tie a piece of tape around a branch, like a flag, at eye level every ten meters or so. You want to be able to see two flags every time you look behind you. You follow the flags back here. Got it?”

“I can find my way.”

“Not in the dark you can’t. It’s too bad none of us has a phaser.”

“Why?”

“One second burst with a phaser on the lowest setting and this stuff glows in the dark for six hours.”

“Nice. Check the Vulcan. I think I saw a sidearm on him.”

Kirk ran back to check. He returned to where the instructor lay. “Lieutenant Spock, Sir, I need to reach behind you.” There was no answer. Spock’s eyes were half closed, his mouth half open. He barely breathed. “Hey!” he shouted. Nothing. The data pad lay face down on his chest.

Well, fuck. He tilted Spock forward enough that he could detach the phaser from his belt. Finnegan met him. “He dead or something?”

“Not yet, but he might be in a coma. He’s not answering me. You need to get Bones and get back here as quick as you can.” He set the roll of tape on the ground and hit it with a brief burst phaser burst. The tape glowed softly. “Finnegan, don’t get distracted. I don’t think Lieutenant Spock can wait all night.”

“Wish I knew why none of the satellites are working.”

“Me too,” Kirk agreed.

“You think we’re under attack?”

“I hope not. Look, water’s straight that way. Listen for it. When you get there, go upstream until you see the big bull pine, then follow our tracks back to camp. It’s a good thing the moon is full. Get back before the clouds roll in.”

Finnegan stole a look at their unconscious instructor. His cocky grin vanished. “I’ll hurry.” He strode off in the direction of the water, not running, fortunately, but making his best safe pace in forested, hilly terrain on a moonlit night. Kirk watched after him until he disappeared, then turned back to the man visibly dying in front of him. It was going to be a long night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) We seem to be getting close right now to having the magnetic poles flip. When it happens, for a little while there will be several poles that will shift positions. I decided it amused me to head canon that the magnetic shift is underway during the Academy time period.
> 
> Migratory birds don't like it and it makes compasses kind of complicated, but in the grand scheme of things it's really no big deal.


	8. Things Fall Apart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finnegan retrieves McCoy to treat an unconscious Spock.

“Dammit,” Captain Pike snapped, worried enough to be heedless of his language around the teenage cadet leaning against a tree a couple of meters away easily within earshot. The plan had been to feign an emergency and leave Novotny, whom he had captured some hours before, alone at the campsite to test how she handled making decisions on her own. Unfortunately, his comlink appeared to be malfunctioning. He pulled out his data pad to text Lieutenant Spock instead. Nothing.

It was almost midnight, not a great time to try to hike all the way back to where Spock was looking after Finnegan and presumably Kirk, if he still had him in custody. Pike would bet good money the kid had escaped and made it back to the cadets’ base camp by now. Unfortunately, with his datapad also not receiving any signal, he couldn’t track any of them. The data pad and comlink were independent. They shouldn’t both fail at the same time, even if they had gotten wet. 

Novotny stood with her back resting against the trunk of a large tree, her legs crossed, her hands bound in front of her. She caught his gaze on her and looked away from him, blowing an errant lock of hair out of her eyes. She was no doubt wondering what had provoked his outburst. Let her wonder, he thought. It was good to learn to exist in uncertainty. Pike made himself wait five full minutes before testing the comlink and the datapad a second time. Still nothing. A real emergency was not on his agenda for today.

“Novotny, come here a minute,” he said. She walked over to him warily. “I’m suspending the exercise temporarily. Communications are down.” He tapped in his security code and sent a short range signal to her restraints, which fell off.

She bent to pick the restraints up off the ground. “Is something wrong with the satellite?”

Pike gave it a moment’s thought. Global communications signals were carried through a network of satellites and ground based signal towers. If the satellites alone were down, then within a few minutes the signals would be rerouted to the ground based towers. They might lose some bandwidth, but it would still be possible for high priority Starfleet signals to get through. “It would have to be more than one satellite down. Each location is covered by at least three at any given time, plus the ground towers.”

The cadet’s face paled. “What could do that?”

“Coronal mass ejection, EMP from a warp core breach, pulse generator weapon, malicious software…” Pike trailed off. “Right now the reason matters less than the fact that for the moment we’re on our own.” The situation was serious, but not immediately dangerous, so he sat down on a rock and looked up at Novotny, who was rubbing her newly freed wrists. “Your assessment?”

She sucked on her bottom lip in thought, then said, “Where is everyone?”

“When I last spoke to Lieutenant Spock, he had just subdued Cadet Kirk and was taking him to a sheltered area about a klick upstream from your camp. He should be there with Kirk and Finnegan. We’re another klick from them, directly away from the river.”

Novotny nodded understanding. “And the weather is going to get bad tomorrow evening. We have to get everyone to high ground by then in case there’s minor flooding.”

“Exactly.” He paused, a more disturbing possibility occurring to him. “It’s possible that whatever took out the comm sats also took out primary weather control.”

“So the storm might be worse?”

“And it might be early. Or late. I don’t know how much EOAA was modifying the storm track.”

“And without data access we won’t even see it coming.”

“Quite possibly.” The spot Lieutenant Spock had selected to hold his prisoners was too close to the water for Pike’s comfort, but it was on higher ground than the camp occupied by the bulk of the cadets, which was just off a sandbar and mere meters from the water’s edge. Pike should have argued more strenuously to reschedule the exercise in light of the storm—even in a best case scenario they were likely to end up with a day or more of ionic interference that would prevent the transporters from being used and would make shuttle flights hazardous. With the comms and maybe the weathersats down, the situation could get ugly fast.

Novotny said, “We should keep checking the comlinks every half hour. In case they come back online.”

“Good plan. What are our options?” The situation was not yet so critical that he couldn’t give her the chance to come up with her own strategy.

“Well, we could move out now, go back to the cadets’ base camp or meet up with Lieutenant Spock. Or we could wait here until morning.”

Pike looked up. The sky was clouding over, the full moon already hidden. It had grown oppressively dark. “Who did you leave in charge?”

“McCoy. He’s…kind of the adult in the room and since he’s already a lieutenant, he outranks the rest of us. I told him to move out in the morning if we didn’t come back, to head for the ridge up by that stand of really tall pines, the ones we could see from the landing site.” She paused. “Kirk picked the spot. Said we’d be safe there if it flooded.”

“Do you think McCoy will try to wait for you?”

She shook her head. “I think he’ll figure you tagged us and sent us back to San Francisco.”

“So what does that make our best course of action?”

She thought some more. “I think we’re best off staying here until morning.”

So far, Novotny was handling herself well, though he had hoped to leave her without the option of deferring to someone else. He wondered how Kirk was doing. Spectacularly well or spectacularly badly, with no in between, he guessed. “I think you’re right. Running around in the woods at night when we don’t have to is asking for an accident. I’m going to suggest that we rendezvous with Lieutenant Spock in the morning if the comlinks still aren’t working, since he may wait for us.” 

“Yes, sir.”

“Get some sleep if you can, cadet. “I’ll wake you at 0300 to take a watch.”

“Yes, sir.” She crawled into the lean to he’d made from fallen boughs and pine needles, waterproofed with his tarp and softened with his unzipped sleeping bag. He would bet good money she wasn’t sleeping. 

*

McCoy sat between Turei and Petrucci, monitoring their fake life signs while they and Daly got some sleep. He’d had no alerts in over an hour, which was odd, but he would take a boring few hours when he could get them. Saggda and Lim were on watch. Lim’s silhouette moved from its spot at the far left edge of the stone overhang to meet up with Saggda’s on the right. They conferred for a moment, then Lim approached to crouch in front of McCoy. “Someone’s coming.”

As soon as she spoke, he could hear the rustle in the understory as whoever it was approached. “I need Dr. McCoy!” a voice shouted at them. Finnegan. A moment later he was inside the shelter with them. “Dr. McCoy, you need to come with me now. The other instructor is really sick. I think he might be dying.”

McCoy set down his datapad to focus on Finnegan. “Okay, okay, slow down and tell me what’s going on.” Was this another test?

Finnegan nodded and took a moment to catch his breath before continuing. “Kirk and the instructor, he’s Vulcan, are about a klick from here. The Vulcan guy is really sick. Started with a cough, but he started spitting up blood and when I left he had gone into a coma or something.”

Vulcan. Of course it would be a Vulcan. McCoy had not been much of a xeno guy in med school…you just didn’t see too many nonhumans in Atlanta. He had found over the last few weeks that he was good at absorbing the mountains of data on different physiologies and relating them to each other in a way that made sense in his head, but a six week crash course did not a xenomedical specialist make. “Why didn’t you just call for an emergency transport?”

“Satellites aren’t picking anything up. No comms, no data transmissions.”

“Just yours or the instructor’s comlink too?”

“Everybody’s comms.”

It could still be a test, but McCoy decided to play it safe. If the satellites were down, that meant no life signs monitoring them from above either. They were on their own. “Well, isn’t that terrific. You didn’t leave him alone out there, did you?” 

Finnegan scoffed. “Of course not. Jim Kirk’s with him.”

All right, I’ll be right with you.” He unfolded himself from his place on the floor. “Wake Petrucci and Turei. I am calling this sim right now.” He crossed to the corner where Daly slept. “Daly, up and at ‘em.” She stirred, yawned, then sat up and blinked herself awake.

He looked around at the supplies scattered around the camp. It wasn’t messy, but a lot of things--camp stoves, tarps, blankets—were doing the jobs they had been brought for, and so weren’t packed. “Do we have time to break camp and all follow you?”

“I don’t think so, sir,” Finnegan said. We should go right now.”

McCoy nodded acknowledgment. “Everybody here with me now,” He waited for Saggda to approach. “Here’s what we’re going to do. Turei, you’re with me in case I need muscle. Lim, you’re in charge of this group. Stay here till first light, then head for the ridge with Petrucci, Saggda, and Daly. Find shelter, we won’t know for sure when the storms are coming in. Mark your path.” He paused, trying to decide if there was anything else he needed to say before they were out of contact. “Don’t come looking for us. We will come to you.”

“Doctor,” Finnegan prompted.

“Right.” He grabbed his medkit and followed Finnegan with Turei close behind. A few steps away from the rechargeable lights inside their shelter, the darkness became thick enough to feel on his skin, an effect intensified by the steamy air. Finnegan’s flashlight made a column of light that swept in front of them, its beam picked out by patches of thin fog. The glimpses of sky above them were matte black and starless, almost indistinguishable from the dark shapes of tree limbs. There was no trail as such, just a path of least resistance partly picked out by the habitual paths of large animals. They followed bits of glowing blaze orange tape tied to branches at intervals, the darkness hiding the branches themselves so they seemed to float unsupported in the gloom.

Even with all three flashlights pointing the way, McCoy stumbled over low running vines and stumps. Finnegan kept up a punishing pace, at one point grabbing him by the arm and half helping, half dragging him over a particularly rough run of tumbled boulders near the water’s edge. Turei brought up the rear, singing loudly in a language McCoy didn’t know in an effort to discourage bears and big cats from getting too close. In ideal conditions on decent trail they should have been able to reach Kirk and Spock’s position in fifteen minutes. As it was, with no trail, at night, and with the detour Finnegan took to use the water as a navigation aid it took almost an hour, and McCoy bore a number of bruises and some nasty scratches from a patch of raspberry canes. 

Finally, Finnegan led them away from the river and uphill to a level spot beside a rock wall. A two man tent had been set up a safe handful of meters from the campfire that crackled in the confines of a circle of stones. Jim poked his head out of the tent, his face drawn and odd looking in the mix of firelight and the bluish LEDs hanging inside the tent. “Took you long enough, it’s after midnight!” he said. Catching McCoy’s eye, he added, “Bones, get in here. Lieutenant Spock doesn’t look so good.”

McCoy crawled into the tent, leaving Turei and Finnegan to sit outside by the fire. It was a tight fit. The Vulcan was wrapped in a blanket and propped on a backpack at about a forty degree angle. He was unconscious, his mouth open and flecked with foam. His skin, especially around the lips and eyes, had taken on the yellow-brown tint that indicated hypoxia in his species.

“Give me a rundown of his symptoms and when they appeared,” he told Jim.

“Is he going to die?” Jim said instead of answering his question.

McCoy had been about to say a reassuring, knee jerk “no” but stopped himself. “I don’t know. Was he like this when you found him?”

“He found me. Caught me around 1900 hours I think. Put restraints on me and carried me like a sack of potatoes back here. He had Finnegan tied up too.”

“So how did he get from carrying you through the woods to lying here unconscious?” He untucked his patient’s shirt and pulled it up above the ribcage, noting substernal retractions, with each breath, then pulled it back down and replaced the blanket. McCoy took out his medscanner. Fortunately, the datapad and medscanner had enough data capacity to process the readings and compare them to norms for several dozen species. Unfortunately, he would not have access to the advanced diagnostic capacity on the Starfleet Medical server. The lieutenant’s oxygen sats weren’t good, but weren’t immediately life threatening, probably because the high oxygen atmosphere was compensating. Imaging showed acute pulmonary edema and a quick swab to collect residual sputum in his oral cavity turned up _Pseudomonas aeruginosa_. McCoy leaned in to smell his breath and caught a whiff of a sicky sweet, grapey odor. 

Jim went on, “He said he inhaled some water when he crossed the river. That would have been around 1400 hours, I’m guessing. He was already coughing and breathing funny when he caught me.”

Not the sharpest Vulcan in the drawer, then. “Aspirant pneumonia. Vulcans are unusually susceptible. And it looks like _Pseudomonas_ infection, too. He probably had a subclinical infection before he came out here. There’s a strain that’s been going around causing Vulcans and Andorians trouble. I’ve heard some talk at the clinic.” He took a look at the rest of the readings. Heart rate was close to Vulcan normal, maybe a little fast, respirations much too fast, blood pressure seemed oddly, almost dangerously high for a Vulcan given that it should be barely detectable. 

He pulled out a collection vial and twisted it into place inside his hypospray, then pressed it to the inside of his patient’s elbow. A small amount of blood hissed into the vial. He removed the sample to place it into the portable analyzer. Blood chemistry and hormones looked--weird. Weird without a pattern he could discern. It made McCoy nervous not to have a differential diagnosis springing to mind immediately on seeing the numbers. He had to come up with a diagnosis and treatment regimen from memory, since the pharmacological computers were inaccessible. “It’s good you raised him up. Gets him a bit more air,” he told Jim, who hovered at his elbow.

“That’s what he said to do, before he--passed out.”

McCoy acknowledged Jim’s statement with a nod, noting the catch in his voice, but wanting to finish examining the Lieutenant before addressing whatever was going on with Jim. The last thing to check was the neuroscan. Parts of his patient’s brain were dark, comalike, but others, a few areas in the deep brain, a patch of frontal lobe just behind the eyes, were lit up almost as though he were conscious. Some weird meditative state, maybe?

He loaded Isilicin into a hypo, but stopped himself, looking at the blood chemistry workup again. ALT and AST levels not high enough to indicate compromised liver function, but there was something wrong with them being there. Wait. That was what he had seen. ALT and AST were human liver enzymes. Why would a Vulcan patient be shedding human liver enzymes, even in these small amounts?

Unless he were only half Vulcan. “Hey, what was his name again?” he asked Jim.

“Lieutenant Spock. Why?”

“I heard there was a Vulcan-Human hybrid at the Academy. I can’t imagine how they pulled that off, but if he’s the one, I can’t risk any antibiotic that’s toxic to either humans or Vulcans.”

“I’m not sure if that’s him,” Jim said.

“He’s got human proteins in his blood.” McCoy fished through his bag. He had planned for minor injuries and infections in humans, Sannakai, and Andorians. He hadn’t brought any Vulcan specific drugs. Isilicin was an Andorian-safe drug that also worked on Vulcans, but tended to cause some nasty side effects in human patients.

But then, so did _Pseudomonas_ pneumonia. Reluctantly, he loaded the hypo and injected into the Lieutenant’s jugular. He loaded an ampule of cortisol, just in case. Cannabidiol would help combat any cerebral edema that might turn up and was safe for damn near anything that had a brain, but he waited on giving either drug. See how the Lieutenant handled the antibiotic first. 

He turned back to Jim. “You and Finnegan did the right thing, coming for me and keeping his head elevated.”

“Will he be okay now?” Jim said.

McCoy had to shrug. “I don’t know yet, kid.”

Jim sagged against the fabric wall of the tent. He was breathing harder again. He pressed his fist to his mouth, and McCoy could see his teeth pushing into the knuckles. “Jim,” he said. Jim shook his head, too fast, more like he was shaking off a bee than saying no. McCoy crossed over his patient’s feet to crouch in the cramped space beside him, half out the door. “Jim, look at me.”

“Can’t do this again,” he mumbled into his fist.

McCoy pulled him in, one arm tight around the younger man’s shoulders. “Yes, you can.”

“I want to go outside.”

“No.” The last thing McCoy needed was Jim bolting off into the dark. “I can’t leave the Lieutenant, and I’m not leaving you.” He gave him a few moments, feeling the subtle shiver in his shoulders, the harshness in his breath. Time to remind him who he was. “So what’s our next move? Sir.”

Jim licked his lips. “We hope the comms come back online so we can beam the lieutenant out of here. We stay here for the night. But we make a stretcher for him at first light to carry him out of here if we have to.”

“And where do we go?”

“We rendezvous at the ridge with the rest of the cadets. It’s high enough ground to avoid flooding and sheltered enough to protect us if the storms get bad. Hopefully there’s a cave up there we can use. The terrain’s right for small caves.”

While he didn’t like the idea of carrying a stretcher with a critical patient over rough terrain, he liked being trapped by floodwaters even less. “Sounds like a plan. Why don’t you lie down next to our friend here and get some sleep.”

“I don’t know. Vulcans aren’t exactly cuddly.”

McCoy shook his head. “I doubt he even knows you’re there. Go to sleep. Turei can keep watch—he’s been lying down all day.” 

Jim lay down reluctantly, positioning himself so he could see McCoy without moving his head, and closed his eyes to pretend to sleep. McCoy leaned back to settle himself in a less uncomfortable position partly supported by the tent fabric, medscanner in hand, eyes on the rapid rise and fall of his patient’s chest. Jim's breaths, too fast for an entirely different reason, almost mirrored the lieutenant's, fast but more irregular. In the cramped space, the three men's legs shared the same space, so McCoy pulled Jim's up onto his lap and laid his free hand against the side of his friend's ribcage, hoping the contact would calm him enough that he might eventually sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Actually took the time to do the number of drafts I prefer to do. I know, I know, it takes longer.


	9. Command Decisions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kirk is ordered to abandon a friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Zion for a beta read that tightened some things up.

_Plip. Plip. Plip plip._

Raindrops hitting the outside of a tent make an unmistakable sound. Kirk’s eyes opened on hearing it and he sat straight up, planting one hand on something soft and warm and distinctly body-like next to him. He snatched his hand away from the comatose lieutenant’s leg and looked for Bones, who had turned to face him on hearing him stir.

“He’s breathing a lot better this morning,” Bones said.

Kirk glanced upward. “It’s starting to rain.”

The sober look on Bones’ face let Kirk know that he and his best friend were on the same page. “The storms aren’t going to hold off until evening. Go on, get Turei and Finnegan up, get ready to move out.”

Kirk scrubbed at his hair. He was squished against the wall of the tent. It took a moment for him to figure out where to plant his hands and feet so he wouldn’t step on the unconscious lieutenant on the way out. Turei was keeping watch, probably glad not to be forced to lie about anymore. Finnegan slept between the rock face and the campfire. “We’re heading out as quick as we can break camp,” he told Turei.

“Is the lieutenant up and around, then?” Turei asked.

Kirk shook his head. “No. We’ll need to make a stretcher for him.” The sky was beginning to lighten to a lilac gray. It continued to sprinkle just enough to be irritating. “I thought we could reinforce the tent poles to use for the sides and the tarp to hold him.”

“Tent poles are kind of flexible,” Turei noted. He looked around the space. “Branches would be better, but they’d take a lot of time to prep.”

“No time. We’ll have to see if we can wrap the tent poles to make them stiffer.” A gust of wind interrupted his next thought. The tent bowed inward and flattened before popping back up, and the tarp Turei and Finnegan had been using for cover flipped up and wrapped itself around a shrub sticking out of a crack in the rock. Kirk jogged after it and snatched it down to roll it up and bunch it against his chest. It dumped warm rainwater down the front of his uniform.

Finnegan, awakened by the flapping tarp and chatter, hauled himself upright. “You think, since the sim is off, we could break into the rations?”

There was nothing Kirk wanted to do more, but he stopped to think the question through. Did they even have any rations to break into? Kirk and Finnegan had been captured without their packs, and he had no idea whether Bones still had anything stashed in his medkit. The lieutenant had twenty-two five hundred calorie bars in his pack—he had inventoried it thoroughly while waiting for Finnegan to return with Bones last night. “We’ll have one bar each before we head out, and another when we make our first break.”

“Can I have mine now?” Finnegan asked.

The hunger Kirk had been successfully ignoring since he woke made itself painfully known. “We’ll all eat now.” He crawled back into the tent to grab four ration bars, placing one pointedly in Bones’ lap before backing out again and tossing one each to Finnegan and Turei. “Don’t eat too fast,” he reminded them again. He took a swig from Bones’ canteen, then handed it to Turei. “Bones says Spock’s not contagious, but I still don’t want to drink his water.”

They rolled their eyes, but took small bites and chewed thoroughly until the bars were gone. Once they had finished eating, Finnegan moved on to douse the fire and Turei placed the tarp out on the damp ground. Kirk started on his own ration bar. The sky was lighter, more gray and less blue, but it was still dim and sunless. The raindrops were larger than they had been and more numerous—while it wasn't quite raining, it was more than sprinkling.

He left Finnegan gathering up the LEDs dotting the campsite to start packing up Lieutenant Spock’s pack. Bones sat cross legged beside him, drawing his scanner slowly from head to foot, about twenty centimeters above his body. “I assume because he’s still here, the comms are still down?” Kirk asked.

“Brilliant deduction, Sherlock,” Bones confirmed. He looked down at his datapad and dug around in his medkit to pull out one of those bubble like ampules. He held it up to the light to check the label and snapped it into his hypo before pressing it to the lieutenant’s neck. “He’s better. I gave him a second hit of Isilicin a couple of hours ago and the infection’s starting to clear.”

Kirk studied the pale, slack face of Bones’ patient. His mouth was closed, the nostrils and jawline relaxed. “He’s breathing better?”

“Much. But the Isilicin’s elevated his intracranial pressure a bit. I gave him a counteragent. He should have come round already if it were the hypoxia keeping him unconscious, but he hasn’t.”

Another gust of wind flattened the side of the tent against Kirk’s back and was followed by an increase in the blatting of raindrops. It was definitely raining now. “I’m going to help with the stretcher.”

“Jim,” Bones stopped him as he pulled open the tent flap.

“You need something?”

“I need you to take Finnegan and Turei up to the ridge.” McCoy looked away from Kirk for a moment on the pretense of tucking the hypospray back in his medkit. “Go now. It might not be safe to travel for much longer.”

“And leave you here?”

More drops spattered the tent, louder this time. McCoy flinched. “It’s getting worse quick. The tent will protect the two of us. It’s built for worse conditions than this. Dragging this man over rough terrain all day in a downpour will most likely kill him.”

“It’s not raining that hard,” Kirk protested. Even he could hear how lame that sounded. He changed tactics. “We’ll stay here with you.” He swallowed. “I’ll stay here with you.” 

“You most certainly will not!” Bones snapped back.

“Who left you in charge?” Kirk had been under the impression that he was second in command after Novotny for this exercise.

“Novotny,” Bones said. “And I called the sim, so right now I’m in charge because I outrank you.”

“Pulling rank, Cadet Lieutenant?”

McCoy huffed out a breath. “I guess I am.” 

Kirk stared him down. “I’m not leaving you here by yourself.”

“I won’t be by myself.” He gestured toward his patient with his chin.

“Worse than by yourself.” Another gust of wind splattered raindrops against the outside of the tent. Kirk hunched involuntarily, as if his body expected the buffeting that the tent absorbed for them.

Bones took him by the shoulders. “It won’t get that bad that fast. We’re high enough it won’t flood where we are, and I won’t leave the tent. I need you to get those two cadets up to the ridge and make sure Pike knows where we are.”

“I’m coming back for you both.”

“I’m counting on it.” McCoy turned away to consult his datapad, signalling the discussion was at an end.

By the time Kirk backed out of the tent, Finnegan and Turei were already packed and ready to go, the half assembled stretcher pushed up against the rock wall. “Lieutenant McCoy is staying here with his patient,” Kirk told them.

“Yeah, we know,” Turei said. “You two don’t argue quietly. Sooner we’re out of here, sooner we get back.”

Kirk nodded. It was clear the storm system was moving in much faster than they’d planned for, which meant that ion storm conditions would be overhead before long even if they weren’t already. There was little chance of a beam out, but Earth’s storms were tame compared to what some worlds could dish out and Starfleet shuttles were overengineered for just these situations. All they needed to do was wait for the comms to come back online and they could bring a shuttle out here to retrieve Bones and the lieutenant. 

He wouldn’t think about the comms not coming back. It was raining in earnest by the time they started toward the ridge. He had a general idea of where he was going, but since there was no trail to follow, they would have to be careful not to get lost on the way, especially given the miserable visibility. He led, because he knew where he was going. Finnegan took the middle position, and Turei, again, brought up the rear. 

A half an hour later the rain was coming down in sheets, hard enough that they splashed through ankle deep sheet flow and rills, slipping and sliding on newly muddy, uneven ground. The first rolls of thunder signaled that there would be no transporter rescue even if the comms came back online. The rain poured off his hair and into his eyes bathwater warm and the unrelenting barrage of fat droplets turned the way ahead into a Monet painting. 

The pale gray daylight in which they started their hike was as light as it ever got; the sky darkened by stages until it was as dark as twilight and touched with an oppressive green cast. Turei paused in his singing only to swear enthusiastically on missing a step and sliding feet first into Kirk and to the ground Kirk landed on him, one elbow jabbing into his groin. Finnegan pulled Kirk to his feet. Turei lay in a puddle deep enough to lap over his midsection, a long suffering look on his face. 

“You’re not hurt are you?” Kirk asked, dreading the answer.

“No. Not really.” Turei’s hands were still cupped protectively over his abused privates. “I’m just a little stuck.”

It took both Finnegan and Kirk two tries and two more falls, which failed to get them any wetter, small favors, to get Turei to his feet. To be fair, Turei was carrying most of their kit and was as overbalanced as a turtle. The rain sluiced most of the mud off them in minutes. Kirk disciplined himself to fix his eyes on the tall, split-topped pine on the ridge every time lightning tracked across the sky. 

At a point he hoped was roughly halfway Finnegan pointed out an overhang a few dozen meters above and ahead of them and Kirk shouted his approval. They slogged their way up to the space, ducking through the rainwater sheeting over the edge of the rock and crouching close together, just enough out of the rain that they could check their comms and eat their next ration bars without them getting too soggy.

Kirk flipped his comm open first. “I’m checking in with Captain Pike,” he told Finnegan, tossing him a ration bar and passing a second to Turei. They could hear choppy static tossed with occasional fragments of sound that might be words. “That’s better than it was,” he told them, then gestured to Turei to turn his back so he could pull Spock’s datapad out of the pack on his back. “I’ll try text.”

He tapped in his code, held his breath for a spare second hoping that Spock had granted him ongoing access, and blew it out when the message field opened. He sent a brief message to Pike. It was 1016.

This is Cadet Kirk. En route with Turei and Finnegan to double crowned pine on top of the ridge. McCoy with Lieutenant Spock at Spock’s camp. Spock critically ill. Please advise. 

“We’ll give them fifteen minutes.” He pulled out a ration bar for himself.

He only had to wait four minutes. 

_This is Captain Pike. Am with Cadets McCoy and Novotny. Lieutenant Spock remains unconscious. Our position is cut off by flooding._

He read the message aloud, then tapped out a reply.

_Orders?_

This time he waited for five minutes and received no reply. He waited another five.

He tried to send a message to Cadet Lim, but the datapad informed him that signal was no longer available. “We’ve lost them,” he told Finnegan and Turei. “We’ll try again in half an hour. Let’s head back the way we came in case Pike needs help.”

“We have our orders,” Finnegan said. “We should head up to the ridge.”

“I am fully aware of our orders, cadet. The situation has changed. There are four people trapped by floodwaters back the way we came.”

“And what do you think we can do about it?” Finnegan turned to Turei. “There a boat in that pack you’re carrying?” Turei shook his head, then looked down at his dripping knees, unwilling to remark on the sneer in Finnegan’s tone.

“I’m not leaving them to drown.”

Finnegan argued, “We can’t raise the rest of our own group either, Kirk. They could be lost, or cut off, or injured too. Or are you too busy worrying about your boyfriend and your Daddy to think about that?”

“Bones—Dr. McCoy is not my boyfriend,” Kirk snapped back. He swallowed. “And Captain Pike sure as hell isn’t my father.”

“He got you admitted last minute. No admissions interview, no aptitude tests, just pushed a piece of paper across a desk and here you are, an entitled little legacy with no business being here.” Finnegan stood. “I’m heading up to the ridge. You with me?” The last he directed pointedly at Turei.

Turei looked from Finnegan to Kirk and back. “I gotta stretch. You gotta stretch, Kirk?” He crawled out of the too small alcove, moving cramped limbs carefully, jogging Kirk’s elbow with his own as he passed. Twice.

Kirk got the hint. He slid out after Turei into the driving rain and followed him behind a clump of tangled, scrubby trees. Turei turned his back on Kirk to fuss with his clothes. “Finnegan’s an asshole,” he said.

Kirk opened his mouth to agree? Argue with Turei? He settled on a noncommittal noise.

“He’s an asshole,” Turei repeated. “But he’s right. We go back now, at best we lose time. At worst, we get ourselves stranded right along with them.”

Getting stranded was by no means the worst that could happen to them, but Kirk chose not to correct Turei on that point. It took him several seconds to force capitulation out of his mouth. “No. We go on, but work on the problem as we go. I’m not just going to sit up there and wait for a shuttle that might not get to them in time.”

“Why did Pike recommend you anyway? Did he know your dad or something?”

Kirk sighed. “I think he may have.” He turned back to where Finnegan was now standing a few meters up the trail, ready to move on. “But it doesn’t have anything to do with my dad.” He hiked up to Finnegan’s position to pass him up and take the lead again, half hiking, half climbing through the driving rain.

Their next break was shorter. He checked his datapad. There was a new message from Pike.

_Make for the ridge. Call for shuttle pickup. Keep checking in._

He formulated a reply. _Copy on heading for the ridge. How high is the water where you are?_

The datapad loaded the message into its queue to send as soon as a channel opened up. Kirk sent a second message to Lim. 

_Rendezvous at the ridgetop. Consult topographic map and keep to the high ground. Flooding unpredictable._

Kirk tucked the datapad back into the pack for Turei. There was no reply by the next stop. Or the next.

They had nearly arrived at the rendezvous point at the base of the twin topped pine when he stopped them one more time to check the datapad for messages. He’d hoped to catch sight or at least a message from Lim’s group before now. “Go on ahead,” he told Finnegan and Turei. “This is a better vantage point to see if the rest of the group is following.” At the higher elevation, the wind was much stronger, gusting to fifty or sixty kph and blowing the rain into them sideways. “Scout a place to make a shelter and a flat spot for a shuttle to land. I’ll be up to give you a hand in five.”

He peered downhill, one hand laid flat against his forehead like a visor. There were two plausible approaches to the top of the ridge. One he could see clear down to the bottom of the hill, a good hour’s hike from their current position. He couldn’t see anyone on the rocky ascent yet. He couldn’t see the route clearly beyond that, but he could see suspicious movement and brown bubbling water in places he was sure there hadn’t been before. The sky was cut by another long track of branched lightning reaching from horizon to horizon. He counted automatically, one one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand, and the sharp, startling crack of thunder followed.

The other approach he could see a little further total, but the route was hidden by trees and tumbled stones in several spots along its length. He watched longer, hoping to see Lim and her team come out from behind an outcrop. Five minutes turned into ten, turned into twenty, then turned into time to check the datapad for another message.

He turned to make his way up the last few meters to the small stand of pines along the ridge. A flash of bright yellow tarp caught his eye. He trudged toward it, eyes on each step to keep from slipping. Turei and Finnegan had made good progress. They found a space where several boulders had trapped earth to allow a large pine to grow up at an angle. They’d thrown the tarp up over the trunk and lashed it down to make a tent. Kirk ducked under the dangling corner. “You check the datapad? Any word from Pike or Lim?”

Turei looked up from where he was looking into the device. “Lim’s group is just coming up to the base of the ridge. Pike sent orders to stay put. And there’s a message from Starfleet Command.”

Kirk took the datapad from Turei.

_Starfleet Command, Stardate 5056.31._

_Communications limited to text for next 12 to 24 hours due to cyberattack on Earth satellite system._  
Weather conditions extremely hazardous throughout the freshman cadet training exercise region.  
Ion storms and questions of software compromise preclude transporter use at this time.  
Send report of numbers, condition, and location as soon as possible to be placed in shuttle queue.  
Exercise caution and expect retrieval in four to thirty six hours. 

He handed the datapad back to Turei. “So we wait.” Turei said.

“We wait until the rest of our group gets here. We send our message. Meantime I want a rescue contingency plan for the group cut off by the river.”

“Let it go. It’s not our job anymore to rescue them,” Finnegan said. “We’re supposed to stay here.”

Kirk resisted the fleeting urge to punch Finnegan in the mouth. Instead, he said. “Whenever anyone in authority says sit tight and await rescue, assume that rescue isn’t coming until you see the shuttle land in front of you.”

“You’re one paranoid jackass, you know that?” Finnegan said.

“Yep,” Kirk replied, and left it at that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was heavily influenced by the weather we've been having. I regret nothing.


	10. Frontier Medicine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> McCoy looks after Spock in a sopping wet tent. It fails to be fun.

McCoy’s patient remained stubbornly unconscious with slightly elevated intracranial pressure, a side effect he expected when he gave the presumably half-Vulcan the second dose of Isilicin and one he could manage with drugs he had on hand. Still, it was likely to get a little worse before it got better, and he was glad he had decided to stay behind when the first really hard gusts of wind made the side of the tent billow inward. The rain washed against the reinforced panels of the tent, loud and continuous. It was no longer possible to hear individual raindrops strike.

He knew he had made the right decision to send Kirk, Turei, and Finnegan to safety before the storm got worse, but the fact didn’t make him feel any less alone. Communications were still down. He checked his datapad every five minutes, a nervous habit, but he had little else to do and he desperately wanted access to Lieutenant Spock’s medical records. Lightning brightened the interior of the tent every minuteor so, followed by sharp cracks of thunder that went on and on, only gradually diminishing to rolling rumbles. 

It was loud enough in the tent that the first sign that he wasn’t alone was ghostly handprints pressing at the sealed tent flap. He stared at them, willing his cramped legs to move. Pike yelled over the din, “Who’s in there? Open up!”

“Hold your horses, I’m coming,” McCoy replied. He had moved Lieutenant Spock to rest against the edge of the tent closest to the rock wall that provided partial shelter, giving himself a little space in which to sit crosslegged facing his patient or beside him with his legs stretched out in the direction of the door. The space would be even more cramped with three. He crawled forward to unseal the door flap, numb feet protesting with pins and needles. Pike crawled inside, dripping wet and carrying a soaked pack, which he passed to McCoy. Novotny squeezed in next and turned to reseal the flap. It was a tight squeeze and they were both soaked to the bone. A puddle spread across the floor of the tent and soaked unpleasantly into the seat of McCoy’s pants.

Pike took in the scene silently for almost a minute before speaking. “What happened to Lieutenant Spock?”

McCoy nodded acknowledgement. “He has pneumonia. Finnegan brought me here to treat him, but he’s still unconscious.” McCoy found himself shouting over the storm outside. “I think it may be a side effect of the antibiotic. I sent Kirk, Finnegan, and Turei along to the rendezvous point about forty minutes ago.”

“How did Spock end up with pneumonia?” Pike shifted slightly in the tight confines of a tent meant to hold half the people currently sheltering inside it. McCoy was pressed against the back wall, Pike curled into a ball with his knees to his chest beside him in order to make room for Novotny, who huddled by the door, trying not to bump Spock’s legs.

“He inhaled some water when he crossed the river, but I suspect he already had the infection before he got here. We’ve been seeing a few cases at the clinic. It’s the humid weather.”

Pike nodded curtly, his lips pressed into a tight line. “He neglected to inform me that he was ill.”

McCoy rolled his eyes. “He probably thought he could handle it himself.”

“It’s ankle deep out there already and no sign of letting up. The river’s going to cut us off within an hour or two, I’d guess. Any chance we can move him?”

“Not a chance until he wakes up. He could drown on the kind of improvised stretcher we’d have to put together, and that’s assuming we could even maneuver something like that over this terrain in these conditions. He’s staying here. And I’m staying with him. You two should get to higher ground while you still can.”

“I will make that decision, Doctor,” Pike said.

“Not for my patient you won’t.” McCoy ran another scan, more as a nervous habit than in expectation that anything would have changed in the last ten minutes. 

“How is he?” Pike asked, genuine concern in his voice. 

“It will be another couple of hours before his blood pressure drops and his ICP goes down enough that it will be safe for him to be up and around. At least from what little I remember about the side effects of Isilicin in humans. He’s half human, isn’t he?”

Pike looked down at Lieutenant Spock, then away, as if he were trying not to stare. “Yes, on his mother’s side.” 

McCoy had been in the tent with Spock for a good ten hours, save a quick dash to the edge of the ledge to take a piss. He massaged the feeling back into his calves. “Thanks. I can’t get at his medical records until the comm system comes back on line and I just have to hope I don’t kill him in the mean time.” 

“Come with me.” Pike said. “Novotny, keep an eye on Lieutenant Spock. I’m taking McCoy out to assess our location, see if there’s any higher ground we can get to quickly.”

“What do I do if he gets worse?”

Pike squeezed past Novotny to open the tent flap, balancing awkwardly on the balls of his feet to keep from sitting on Spock. “You said he was stable, right Doctor?”

“Stable enough,” McCoy confirmed. Once Pike was outside, having admitted another blast of wind and lukewarm water, he squeezed past Novotny and into the rain. The younger cadet shifted further inside, her eyes on her charge.

He followed Pike into the wash. It had been too dark, and he had been too preoccupied with his patient to pay much attention to the lay of the land when he arrived last night. Visibility now was barely better. The tent sat snug against a a wall of rock, on a ledge two meters deep at its widest point and about three meters long, bounded on one side by a dropoff of a little less than two meters that ended in a gentle slope that dropped gradually toward the river. The river was high enough now that it was visibly soaking the nearest stand of trees on all sides. He wasn’t sure, but it looked like their escape route might be cut off already, though it was possible the muddy water was only a few centimeters deep. The sheltering wall of rock that formed the other boundary of their ledge was about a meter higher than the ledge itself at the end farthest from the river and about three meters higher at its tallest point.

Pike slid down into the ferns at the edge of the bluff and sank into ankle deep mud. He took a few cautious steps along a rough trail leading away from the river and quickly sank to his knees where the ground dipped lower. “You go much further I’ll lose sight of you,” McCoy warned.

“Copy that,” Pike responded and slogged back to climb back onto their ledge. They walked together to where the stone outcropping was lowest. Pike clambered onto it while McCoy held his breath, waiting for him to fall, his mind automatically cataloging the compound fractures, head injuries, and lacerations that he would have to treat shortly if the captain fell. 

“Get up here,” Pike shouted down.

“No thank you, I can’t treat your compound fractures if I have my own.”

“That was not a request.”

McCoy hauled himself up, not sure whether to expect a sheer drop on the other side. He’d gotten a little out of shape during his residency and hadn’t realized just how much stronger he had grown during the six weeks of intense physical training they’d all gone through during their plebe summer. The climb wasn’t as hard as he expected it to be—until the first gust of wind hit him full force. The wind felt like it was actively trying to knock him off the rock. He flattened himself against it. There was a slightly flatter, larger space ahead of him that he could crawl up to. Pike’s booted feet were clearly visible dangling from it. The side they couldn’t see from their campsite did drop straight down into what looked like it had been a tiny creek before the storm. Now it was fast moving, rain swollen and choked with tumbling debris. He continued his climb. At its highest point, the outcropping of stone on which they rested was an acute triangle on which three or four people could rest, though if the wind got much stronger they could be at risk of being blown clear off it. He scooted up next to Pike.

“If the ledge floods,” Pike began, then waited for a long roll of thunder to subside so he could continue. “If the ledge floods, and I think it will, we’ll all have to wait for pickup up here.”

“How do you plan to drag a 240 pound unconscious Vulcan up here?” McCoy challenged.

“I’m still working on that part. For right now I’m hoping he wakes up and can get himself up here.”

“Right, of course, that sounds like a plan.” A terrible plan if you asked him, but no one did. McCoy started to crawl back down. He put his hand down on a patch of lichen, slick with rain, and slipped down about half a meter, scratching up his arms and abdomen in the process. He rested, arms and legs gripping the rock, cheek pressed against its roughness, his heart thudding in his chest so hard he could hear it in his throat.

He slowed down the rest of the way, moving only one limb at a time, until he could swing his legs down on the side with the ledge, realizing when his toes touched solid ground that he had been holding his breath. He waited for Pike to slither down off his perch before squeezing back into the tent, this time taking the middle spot between Novotny and the Captain. Pike closed the flap behind them.

If they got much more water in the tent they were going to have to bail. It was no quieter inside the tent than it was outside, but at least they could see each other clearly. McCoy turned to Novotny. “Any change?”

“No.” She regarded him in the bluish tent lights. “You’re bleeding.”

McCoy looked down at his hands and arms. None of the scratches were deep, but they were marked with beadlike droplets of blood. He pulled out the dermal regenerator, but scanned Lieutenant Spock first. ICP was up a little from the last scan, but not enough to surprise or worry him. He expected it to peak in about an hour and then slowly fall as the antibiotic cleared itself from his system. Which brought up another problem, which he confirmed by scanning his patient’s lower abdomen: If Spock didn’t urinate soon on his own he was going to have to cath him.

“I don’t think we can safely head back to the ridge at this point. Too much water coming down.”

McCoy nodded, half glad that avenue of escape was closed to all of them. It would spare him the necessity of disobeying orders should Pike require him to abandon his patient. “Spock’s still working his way through the side effects of the antibiotic I have him on. He ought to wake up in another two to three hours if that’s what’s keeping him out.”

Novotny pulled out the datapad. “We have a message!”

“Who from?” Pike asked.

“Lim. She says they’re on their way to the rendezvous point on the ridge, everyone accounted for. Water’s knee deep in spots, so they’re moving slow.”

“Confirm receipt of their message, and tell them to contact us every half hour.” 

“I have a message from Kirk, too.” She passed the datapad to Pike.

He read that one in silence. “Letting me know about the situation here.” He tapped a return message, then swore under his breath. “Signal’s out again.”

*

An hour later, McCoy regretted ever having enrolled in Starfleet. He had on multiple occasions over the summer regretted his enrollment, but he had been either too busy or too exhausted to think about it much. Besides, every time his muscles screamed protest at one more push up, or his brain at one more middle of the night pop quiz followed by a five mile run, he considered his misery just punishment for what he had done to his daughter, to his wife, to his father for God’s sake.

He hadn’t had a sip of alcohol in six weeks.

It was a good thing he didn’t have any on him now. There was nothing to do. He checked Spock’s nonsensical vitals at intervals. He took turns with Novotny and Pike stretching one leg out at a time to keep the blood moving. Four people fit poorly in a two man tent, especially if one of them was laid out so that he took up half the space. He was reminded of the stern warning from the ‘fleet doctor giving them their crash course on alien first aid. “Avoid touching Vulcans if at all possible.” And when he’d asked why, the vague, “We don’t discuss reasons with plebes.”

He hoped it was just a cultural hang up and the three of them weren’t slowly killing the guy. The rain, which sounded like it wasn’t even bothering to come down in droplets anymore, poured onto the tent in sheets. It was too loud for them to converse, too wet to play cards, and even if it weren’t, they had to stay vigilant in case the tent was picked up by an unusually strong gust or the fabric tore enough to let water pour inside.

When it slowed up a little, Pike turned to Novotny. “You’re with me this time. We need to check the water level and I need you to see where we go if the water reaches us.”

Novotny followed him out, leaving McCoy alone with Spock. Sitting in three centimeters of water in the worst rainstorm he had ever experienced was bad enough with miserable company. Once Novotny and Pike had gone, he had even less to think about. They were gone only ten minutes when Lieutenant Spock moaned.

McCoy grabbed his medscanner. The lieutenant’s brain activity was changing while he watched, the pattern shifting into something more consistent with a dream--or a nightmare, given the ramping stress levels. The Vulcan began to thrash and gasp, his hands clenched into fists. “Lieutenant! Spock!” McCoy shouted, hoping he might be able to wake him. No luck. He grabbed him by his shoulders, laying aside the instruction he’d been given in the face of the alarming readings on his medscanner, and shook him. Nothing. Dammit. The only viable option he had was to sedate him before he kicked himself over into a seizure. He collected an ampule of sedative, dialed down the dosage to hopefully only keep Spock unconscious for half an hour or so, and pressed it against his throat. The throes subsided, and Spock fell back into unconsciousness—an unconsciousness more like what McCoy was familiar with than the strange active inactivity of before.

He typed out a quick message to his attending at Starfleet Medical and attached Spock’s record for the last day. It didn’t send, but it would do so as soon as the got a moment’s signal, and he hoped there would be a reply before the water rose too high.

He ran another scan. On the bright side, it looked like he wasn’t going to have to get out the cath kit after all.


	11. From Bad to Worse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prairie continues the search for synonyms for water, rain, and storm.

The rest of the squad didn’t arrive. Kirk waited another hour, returning to the makeshift tent that did little or nothing to keep out the rain, but did provide some shelter from the unrelenting wind. He curled up in the fifty centimeter square dry spot every fifteen minutes to check for messages from Lim, McCoy, or Pike.

Finnegan demanded a turn with the datapad and Kirk snapped at him so viciously that Turei took up a spot between them, probably expecting the two of them to come to blows. He didn’t try to talk to Kirk, though, which meant Kirk disliked him slightly less that he did Finnegan. There was a new message from Lim.

 _Trapped in trees by rising water. Tying ourselves in._

He handed the datapad to Finnegan. “Still want to sit tight?”

Finnegan threw up his hands. “What can we do? We don’t have any more supplies than they do.”

Kirk took the datapad back. “No, but we’re not already up a tree. Turei! Don’t I remember something in your profile about being a lifeguard?”

Turei smiled tightly. “When I was a teenager, yeah. Beaches are beautiful in New Zealand, but they can be treacherous. I’ve fished out my share of tourists.”

Kirk nodded. “We’re not going to get any wetter out there than we are in here. We might as well head back down the hill and see if we can find them.” Kirk tapped a brief message into the datapad to let Lim know he was coming. He tucked the datapad back into the pack and ducked out from under the mostly useless tarp. The rain had lightened considerably. It flicked lightly against the heavy fabric of Spock’s pack. He took a couple of steps and looked up at the sky. Desultory lightning flickered across clouds that hung in the sky like brownish, sodden cotton. “Are you coming?” he shouted over his shoulder.

Turei joined him, but Finnegan shouted back, “I’m staying here.”

Kirk spun to look back at Finnegan where he stood in front of their makeshift tent. “I am in command here,” he snapped.

Finnegan crossed his arms and leaned back against the tree truck holding up their tarp. “I am not getting dinged because you can’t follow orders.”

“If something happens—” He cut himself off. Started over. “You won’t. You’re following my orders.” There was no way Kirk was leaving the rest of his squad trapped over rising water without at least investigating their situation to see he could help. It didn’t matter if he got dinged for it. If somebody got hurt—or _died_ because he wasn’t there, it wouldn’t matter to him at all that he’d done the technically correct thing. He turned away to pick his way down the steep, rocky slope. A few steps into his descent he heard a quick skitter of steps and saw Finnegan’s lanky frame out of the corner of his eye. He flinched, half expecting a sucker punch, but Finnegan just fell into step alongside Turei.

“You were with the group longer than we were. Do you know if Lim had a particular route planned?” Kirk asked Turei.

“We didn’t have a lot of opportunity to plan anything out. Nobody wanted to scout a route after you and Novotny disappeared.” 

Kirk nodded. “Then we’ll start with the most direct route down, stop at the water line, and walk along it until we see them.”

“If we can see them,” Finnegan groused. “This is a waste of time.”

Irritation kept Kirk from answering until they reached the base of the ridge, where vegetation once more covered the ground. Their feet sunk into the spongy earth, muddy water pooling around their boots. Lim’s group was nowhere to be seen. Kirk slung his pack down onto a mossy rock to pull out the datapad and three ration bars, which he distributed to each of them. “Finnegan, see if you can get back in contact with Lim. Pick a frequency and we should be able to use the comm units as tracking devices.”

Finnegan rolled his eyes. “Reprogram the comm units with intermittent connection out in the open during a thunderstorm.” Sheet lightning brightened the sky and he gestured to it with his chin. “We’re going to get hit.”

Kirk’s gut clenched around his meager meal. He took a swig from his canteen. “Do I have to remind you that four members of our squad are in trees, surrounded by water right now?” To punctuate his words, a roll of thunder, long and low, crossed the sky. Since active weather control had made ion storms tame and predictable, the number of people struck by lightning was vanishingly low. Kirk didn’t actually know how great a risk they might be taking, though he did know that seeking high ground to avoid the floods made them more vulnerable to lightning strikes.

The rain picked up again. Turei snatched up the pack and shrugged it on before Kirk could get to it, then walked along the edge of the bluff. “Squad 145, Can you hear me?” he called at intervals in his resonant voice. Kirk gestured to a cluster of tree limbs overhanging a place where the bluff rose almost vertically for a couple of meters. “You can work over there, Finnegan. Should be dry enough you can see the screen.” 

Finnegan took the data pad and strolled over to the spot Kirk indicated, none too quickly. He settled himself among the dripping branches. Kirk paused only long enough to memorize a few landmarks so he could find the spot quickly, then he continued along the water line. Turei called out, “Lim! Saggda! Petrucci! Daly!” at intervals. The next wave of storms struck in earnest, the clouds lowering and dropping water on them in waves, while lightning cracked down like so many whips. Once, maybe half a kilometer from where they stood, a strike broke a huge tree in half with a splintering report. Orange flames licked up for a moment, but were no match for the downpour, fortunately. 

He and Turei reached the end of their path around the bluff without catching sight or sound of their squad. Kirk stared out into the forest, not sure what to do next. He had to do something. He had to make a decision, put it into action right now. If he stopped moving he wasn’t sure he would be able to start again.

*

Leonard McCoy had needed to sedate Spock a second time before he hurt himself, but this dose would have to be the last, and he wouldn’t have given that one if he hadn’t had a dose of antagonist close to hand. The small stream that ran behind their ledge had grown into a torrent and split to send a seething tributary around the front as well. The water had risen to less than half a meter below their narrow shelter and showed no signs of slowing down. He could hear it rushing past from inside the tent.

Novotny and Pike took turns standing outside to monitor it, while McCoy watched his datapad. He had gotten a portion of Spock’s Starfleet medical records, the front page which confirmed again his hybrid status and listed frequently used Vulcan and human drugs to which he had life threatening reactions, detailed his slightly off Vulcan normal vital signs, and cut off before it got into any detail. 

There was a brief message from Puri that said only, “It’s a healing trance. Hit him.” Hit him with what? A stimulant?

Pike poked his head into the tent. “Water’s splashing up onto our level. Do whatever you have to to get him up. We’ve got to move.”

McCoy gritted his teeth and prepared a vial of antagonist. “This better work,” he told both of them while pressing it to Lieutenant Spock’s throat.

It took only a second for the antagonist to enter his system and for Spock to begin thrashing around again. He grabbed the man’s upper arms, straddling him so he could get right in his face. “Wake up, Lieutenant Spock! We have to move, now!” 

There was no response. He turned to Pike, who shook his head, eyes wide.

“How well do you know him?”

Pike bit his lip. “Well enough to know why you don’t touch Vulcans.” He reached forward to slip one hand around the unconscious man’s wrist, below the undershirt. “Wake up!” he shouted. “That’s an order.” He released him and turned back to McCoy. “He can hear us. It’s like he wants to wake up but he can’t.”

McCoy thought about the brief note from Puri. “I’m in all kinds of trouble if this doesn’t work,” he said, then hauled back and slapped Spock hard across the face. The Vulcan’s eyes opened and he grated out, “Please…”

McCoy hit him once more, harder. Pike caught his arm after the second time. “What do you think you’re—”

“Sir.” Spock said, sitting up smoothly. “Cadet McCoy. I surmise you kept watch while I was indisposed.”

“He saved your fool life,” Pike said, releasing McCoy’s arm. “We will have words about this later, Lieutenant,” he bit off, then added. “For now, can you walk? McCoy wondered which lieutenant he was planning to have words with later, Spock or himself. Probably both. He rubbed his stinging hand on his jacket. 

“I believe I am fully recovered, Captain.”

“You believe,” Pike huffed. “I’ll take McCoy’s word for that over yours, but for now we have to make for higher ground. Follow me.” He ducked out of the tent. McCoy followed him, then turned to wait for Spock to emerge from the tent in case he needed help standing. The Vulcan rose gracefully, as though he had been merely napping.

The wind was high and almost cool. It blew muddy spray and fine debris, mostly sand, macerated leaves and twigs across their path. The swollen stream splashed across the ledge, not yet covering it, fortunately. If it had, the force of water would have quickly washed them away. Pike hoisted himself on to the low end of the wall. “We should stay off the very top unless the water forces us up there. Too much risk of lightning.”

He scooted up to a spot just before the rock angled sharply upward and sat, one leg dangling down on the side with the ledge. Novotny followed to sit very close in front of him. “You’re next, Lieutenant.” McCoy gestured toward the wall. “You need to be between two people.”

“I assure you, Doctor, I am fully recovered,” Spock said. McCoy responded with a head shake and a firmer gesture in the direction of the wall. He crossed his arms until Spock complied. He took longer than Pike or Novotny to climb the few meters to where they sat, not due to any visible weakness, but because he paused to test each hand and foothold carefully before moving.

Water was sluicing over McCoy’s feet by the time he took his turn. He checked the crosstrap on his medkit, the datapad tucked safely inside it, before gripping the rough limestone. He hauled himself onto the rock, moving as carefully as Spock had, not wanting to repeat the experience of slipping down their angled perch. Once he was safely sitting just below Spock, he took advantage of the lull in the wind and rain to tap out a message and send it to both Kirk and Lim.

A finger of lightning struck a distant ridge and was followed by a sharp crack of thunder. “Captain Pike?” McCoy said.

“Yes, Cadet McCoy?”

“We’re going to get hit by lightning up here. We’re too close to the top.”

“The doctor is correct. If another storm center passes over this point, the likelihood that we will attract an ion discharge is roughly 64 percent,” Spock said, his voice cracking a little. McCoy passed him his canteen. 

“What do you suggest we do about it, Lieutenant?” Pike replied. At that moment the tent let go of the ledge and tumbled into the churning creek, washed there by the rising water. The ledge itself was only intermittently visible.

Spock regarded the horizon for a moment. “What materials do we have?”

“I brought the pack,” Pike said. “My pack, that is. Cadet Kirk has yours.”

“He stole my pack while I was incapacitated?” Spock asked.

McCoy grumbled, “Of course not. I ordered him to take it when I sent him up to the ridge with Finnegan and Turei. They had to have supplies and a comlink, and I had mine in my medkit.”

“Understood, Doctor. Captain Pike, does your pack contain any electrically conductive materials?”

“I’m not sure it’s safe for me to check right now,” Pike said. Another gust buffeted them sideways and Pike slapped his free hand down on to the stone to keep from pitching off into the creek. “What’s the chance we drown if we don’t stay up on this rock?”

“It differs for each of us, Captain. You have a 92.1% chance of drowning, Novotny 85.4%, as she is a highly accomplished competitive swimmer, Dr. McCoy has a 91.7% chance, and I have a 98.8% chance of drowning given my weakened physical condition and greater density.”

So McCoy was marginally less likely to drown than Captain Pike. Small favors. “Thanks for the detailed rundown. I think I’ll take my chances with lightning. It’s quicker anyway.”

*

Kirk retraced his steps along the edge of the water to the extent he was able. The rising flood covered their path out, so that they had to walk three or four meters further back toward the ridge than they had before. They were between waves again, the rain having died to little more than a sprinkle, thought the wind gusted as strong as ever and darker clouds loomed in the west. When he reached the place he had left Finnegan, the cadet was perched on a tree stump at the water’s edge, the stone overhang he had been using to shelter from the rain now a mere few steps from the water line. “I’ve got more messages,” Finnegan said.

“What’s everyone’s status?” Kirk asked.

“Lim, Saggda, and Petrucci are together, but they’ve lost Daly. The tree she was in fell over and dumped her in the water. Captain Pike’s group had to abandon the ledge and are straddling the top of the outcropping where we were before.” He looked down. “We have tracking!”

“Give me that!” He snatched the datapad from Finnegan. The map with its overlay of green and yellow labeled dots was already pulled up to view. He could see the cluster of four signals, all green now, by the river, another cluster not quite so tight perhaps a hundred fifty meters northeast of his position, and a third, separate and yellow, not moving, roughly forty meters downstream from the group he assumed were Lim, Saggda, and Petrucci. Yellow meant an injury significant enough to alter life signs.

“I’m going after Daly,” he told them both. “Spock have any rope in that pack of his?”

Turei set down the pack to rummage through it. “If he doesn’t I will lose all respect for the man.”

“He did go camping when he had pneumonia,” Kirk noted.

Turei came up with a tight roll of blaze orange twine, unused and still in its shrink wrap. “Says 50 meters.” He threw it to Kirk, apparently knowing better than to argue with him.

“I’m going with you,” Turei said.

“Glad to have you. Finnegan, what about you?”

“I’m going back up to the ridge so I can tell ‘fleet where to go to fish your bodies out of the water.” He turned away from them and clambered up the tumbled boulders in the direction of their tiny campsite, marked by the flapping tarp. 

It was going to be dark soon, and from the look of the western sky, they were in for another round of heavy rain and high winds within the hour. “Turei, you ever do any swift water rescue?”

“I took a course, but I’ve never used it.”

“I don’t think what we have here qualifies, yet,” Kirk said, unspooling the bright twine and tying one end to a carabiner hooked to his belt. He handed the spool to Turei. “This way.”

He strode directly into the muddy water. It wasn’t moving much here, but it still pulled a little at his ankles and a little more when it got to knee deep. The going was slower the further into the flooded area they got. Turei had laced himself in with Kirk, but had also tucked a knife, metal bladed rather than laser, into his belt in case they needed to cut the rope in a hurry. Fifteen meters in they were up to their waists, but it stopped getting deeper. It was just deep enough for slow wading, not quite deep enough to make it worthwhile to try to swim. It was harder to see the sky now that they were back under cover of the trees, but it was darker, and the lightning flashes seemed to be coming closer again. They couldn’t go quickly even if Kirk wanted to. The ground, invisible beneath water nearly the color of chocolate milk, was a mess of tangled vegetation and loosened stones over unpredictably uneven ground. They were getting closer to Daly, though. 

Fingers of lightning flashed almost directly above him, bright enough to leave violet ghosts across his vision. Thunder cracked, and the rain returned with no light preamble, going from the steady dripping of the past half hour to a downpour. Kirk ducked his head and continued, using the datapad to navigate toward Daly. They slid down a slight incline and were suddenly chest deep when Turei shouted, “I see her!”

He pointed to a downed tree. Daly was half perched, half tangled in its branches. Kirk handed the datapad back to Turei to stow, then untied the knot in the rope so he could swim freely. He covered the last few meters with an efficient crawl, slowed down only by occasionally getting hung up on invisible branches and vines. Turei followed close behind. “Daly!” Turei shouted at her. Her head rested against a branch, her eyes closed, though it wasn’t clear whether she was unconscious or just resting. 

“Daly!” Turei repeated when the two of them were close enough to touch her. She was suspended in the branches, only underwater up to the knees. One leg was obviously broken, the shin crooked at an angle as though she had a second knee. Close up, Kirk could see her pale lips pressed into a tight line and the pained wrinkles in her forehead. Turei rubbed at her arm. “True, it’s me, Mick. Jim Kirk’s here with me. We’re going to get you out.”

Daly bit her lip and nodded. The water was just a hair higher on Kirk’s chest than it had been. “Turei, set the pack on those lower branches. See if there’s something in there we can combine with a couple of sticks to make a splint.” He busied himself finding a couple of sticks the right thickness and breaking them off to the right length. 

Turei found the rest of the marking tape, which would do to wrap a splint in a pinch. Kirk passed him the sticks. “Don’t try to set it, just keep it still. I’m going to see how hard it’s going to be to untangle her,” Kirk said. “Daly, I’m going to feel up your arms and legs to see if you’re hurt anywhere else. I don’t mean anything gross.”

Daly sputtered a faint chuckle. Kirk took that as permission and squeezed his way up the other leg. Her foot was planted on one of the larger branches, supporting her in her half seated position. It didn’t look damaged. She shrieked, sharp and short, while he was feeling up her left side. He stopped. She shook her head. “That was Mick tying up my leg. My side’s fine.”

“Got it.” Once he was sure she wasn’t badly hurt anywhere else, he snapped off a couple of smaller branches that might make it hard to pull her out of the tree. The water came to just under his armpits now. Definitely higher than it had been.

Turei waded around behind her. “Let go of the branch and fall back. I’ve got you. Kirk, could you watch so her leg doesn’t hang up on anything?”

“Yeah.” He waited for Daly to scoot backward and let go of the branch she had been holding. Turei caught her around the waist, and Kirk gingerly caught her broken leg with both hands supporting it from below. She winced and squeaked under her breath, but didn’t scream this time.

Daly was small, and Turei was big enough to carry her piggyback. As they were getting arranged, Kirk heard a faint white noise, pitched too high to be thunder and almost imperceptible over the rain falling on the water in which they all stood. It grew louder over the next several seconds. Kirk turned his head in the direction the sound was coming from just in time to see a foaming wall crashing toward them. He grabbed Turei’s arm in hopes that he and Daly would see it in time to brace themselves and take a breath. The water slammed into him, lifted him up, and flipped him over. The world became a tumbling mass of brownish foam.


	12. Rescue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rescue finally arrives for Kirk and his squad, but he has to convince them to let him make a risky save.

Spock scooted down the rock a meter or so until he was snug against McCoy’s body. “I apologize for the necessity, Doctor. We must attempt to lower our profile as much as possible.”

“Don’t apologize, you’re fine,” he replied. He kept his eyes fixed on Novotny as she slid down toward Spock, as though his focused attention could, by itself, keep her from slipping off into the whitewater below. She paused, leaving a few centimeters of space between them.

Spock encouraged her forward. “Dr. McCoy cannot move any lower without risk of being swept away, and we must allow Captain Pike to move down as much as possible.”

Novotny nodded, then crept forward until she sandwiched the Vulcan between herself and McCoy. Lightning reached broken fingers toward them, throwing Pike into stark silhouette for a moment. All four of them hunched their shoulders, even Spock, as though they could avoid a lightning strike by ducking.

“If we were to…” Spock began, but was interrupted by the crack of thunder overhead. He continued, “If we were to run some conductive material along the opposite side of the stone from ourselves, it might attract the discharges, preventing us from being struck directly.”

Pike shook his head. “Wouldn’t matter, we’re all soaked and so is the rock. The charge will go right through us. McCoy, I want to check to see if we’ve got communications back.”

“Yes, sir.” McCoy sat up a little to see if he could reach his medkit. The change in position caused him to slip abruptly downward. His left leg straightened and dropped into the water, which dragged it forward. McCoy grabbed at the rock, missed and felt his stomach leap into his throat as he started to fall in the direction of the ledge.

A hand grasped his arm hard enough to bruise, the fingers digging in and holding on while McCoy gripped the rock with his thighs and got hold of his perch again. Spock met his eyes for a moment, still holding onto his arm while his heart rate slowed back to merely racing and he got control of his stomach. “Now would be a good time to get the datapad,” Spock suggested.

McCoy nodded, but found he could not bring himself to let go of his handhold long enough to reach for his medkit. “I can’t,” he said.

“I am strong enough to hold you in place.”

That was all well and good, but McCoy’s hands were not interested in listening to the Lieutenant’s assurances. “I’m big enough to drag you in the water with me,” he argued.

Spock shifted his grip to wrap an arm around McCoy’s waist. “You now have a hand free.”

McCoy opened the medkit with trembling fingers and pulled out the datapad, but he still couldn’t operate the thing one handed, and he couldn’t set it down without it sliding off his lap into the water. His other hand was still tight on its handhold and Spock’s were both occupied. Spock let go of the rock long enough to collect the device from him, holding on with his legs alone. “I will hold it while you operate it,” he said.

McCoy had to wait until the surge of adrenaline from his brush with death—actual death—he could have actually died just then—faded enough that his fingers would obey him. He tapped the device and it immediately lit up with messages from Kirk, Lim, and Starfleet Command. He dismissed them without reading them, wanting to get their emergency message out fast.

**Location not secure. Imminent risk of fall, drowning, electrocution. Please expedite rescue.**

He didn’t waste keystrokes on identifying himself or his location. The datapad itself would provide those details. His fingers grazed the send button, but the datapad slipped from both of their hands as he did so, disappearing into the foam before McCoy could be sure whether the message had been sent at all.

Another bolt of lightning struck a tree not a hundred meters from their position, thunder following almost simultaneously. Funny how he had thought signing up for Starfleet ensured that he would die in space. The thought occurred to him with almost no emotional backing; he felt calmer than he had any right to. He wondered if he was going into shock. His hands weren’t cold or shaking the way they had been moments before. His heart rate was fast, but not dangerously so, and his thinking seemed clear, for all that he was unconcerned by the fact that he was unlikely to survive.

He hadn’t expected to face his impending death so calmly.

*

Kirk fetched up in a tangle of branches that were torn free during the storm. They came to rest where the ground started to rise sharply toward the ridge. He wrestled himself upright to look for cadet reds. The heavy rain and fast approaching darkness hampered him, but he caught sight of Daly and Turei some ten meters upstream of his position, also hung up in debris. Daly saw him almost as soon as he saw her and waved wildly. He returned the gesture. Turei was almost close enough for her to touch him, but lay face down and unmoving in the water. “Help me!” she shouted, squirming toward his body.

Kirk tried, but he was thoroughly pinned. He could begin to work himself free, but at best it would take him several minutes Turei didn’t have. “I’m stuck. You’ve got to get him yourself!”

Daly wriggled, then doubled over with a gasp when her leg struck something under the water. “I can’t.” She continued to struggle, but wasn’t getting anywhere.

Her jacket was run through with a branch and had a thorny vine stuck to it. “Daly, take off your jacket and slide down through the branches.”

She bobbed her head several times, still nodding even as she slipped out of the jacket and started to squirm down through the nestled branched toward Turei. Her hand gripped his collar and she managed to wrench him a few centimeters above the water. Emboldened, she snapped the last couple of branches in her way and lowered herself down next to him. “He’s not breathing,” she said. “It has to have been too long.”

“It’s been less than ninety seconds since we got hit, Daly. Focus.”

“Right.” She tried to move him so that he was face up, but he kept getting caught on debris, and he was much bigger than she was. “I’m going to try breathing for him while he’s on his side,” she said, already sweeping his mouth with her fingers. “I don’t know if it will work from this position.” She pressed her mouth to his. Repeated the action. Felt for a pulse at his throat and tugged his uniform shirt up to watch his chest. Another breath, and another.

Now that Daly was doing the best she could with Turei, Kirk turned to the task of getting himself free. He was pinned in place by several heavy branches. He bent each leg, rotated each ankle. They seemed sound. Something was wrong with his right shoulder, but he could still move the forearm and wrist on that side, even if the grip strength was a bit less than it should be. “How deep is the water where you are?” he shouted to Daly.

“Eighty centimeters, maybe,” she said between breaths. “But I can’t move Mick any higher. If the water level goes up he’ll drown.” She forced another breath into him and he sputtered, finally, and coughed, then threw up brown water. Daly got her shoulder under his head and pushed up, crying out as she did so. She managed to get his head a few centimeters higher. He opened his eyes and worked his mouth, but didn’t say anything Kirk could hear.

Kirk kept trying to free himself. If the water kept rising, all three of them would drown in short order. He heard a warm whine far above them. White light, softer than lightning, played over their position before the shuttle passed over, heading for the ridge top he’d called in before.

“Do you think they saw us?” Daly said.

“I hope so,” Kirk answered. “Regardless, unless the net’s gone down again they should be able to track us. How’s Turei?”

“Breathing. Conscious but not oriented yet. Remind me to thank Dr. McCoy for insisting I learn first aid without technology.”

The water rose, centimeter by centimeter. Kirk kept trying to free himself even though it was increasingly clear he was stuck fast. Daly stayed beside Turei, holding him up even though she could have easily abandoned him and swum free. The water was nearly up to her chin.

He was beginning to wonder if Finnegan neglected to tell the shuttle pilot where they had gone when he heard flashlights and shouting moving toward them. He shouted back. “Hurry, we’re trapped in place and the water level’s still going up.”

“Is that you, Cadet Kirk? Can you see Turei and Daly?” A voice he didn’t recognize shouted back.

“I can. Go for them first, they’re injured and low in the water.”

Their rescuers wasted no time getting into the water. Two swam directly to Turei and Daly to begin cutting them free, while one paused a moment to run a medscanner over Kirk. He was left alone for another few minutes while their rescuers worked over Daly and Turei.

Turei passed him on an antigrav stretcher led by two women. Daly followed, helped along by a spindly Kelpian. Kirk caught the Kelpian’s arm. “We’ll be back for you in a moment,” the Kelpian assured him, then disappeared out of his sight line.

Being alone and helpless while not knowing where the rest of his squad was, especially McCoy and Pike, was nerve wracking now that he had nothing to do but wait. The possibility of imminent rescue made every small discomfort seem magnified; the chafing from walking and climbing in soaking wet clothes for a full day, the ache in his shoulder from whatever he’d done to it, the incessant heavy rain pouring down his face, over his lips and nose so he couldn’t help but inhale droplets when he breathed. 

Finally, two of the rescue team returned to cut him out of his prison. “What about the rest of my squad? Have you picked them up yet?” he asked, as soon at the Kelpian was in earshot.

“We’ll get to them as quickly as we can, Cadet,” the Kelpian said.

Kirk gripped the Kelpian’s arm with his good hand. “That’s not good enough. Leave me here, I’m fine.” He rolled his eyes and kept cutting. 

Kirk tried another tactic. “Are the weathersats back online?”

“I don’t know. Even if they are, it will take a while for them to bleed the energy out of the system.” The Kelpian hauled him upright by his good arm. 

Kirk picked his way over the cut branches toward the boulder strewn slope leading to the shuttle. “Pike, McCoy, Novotny and Lieutenant Spock are in an extremely hazardous location. They should be first priority.”

“The group trapped on the outcropping next to the river?” the Kelpian asked.

“Yeah, them. They’re going to get blown off or hit by lightning any minute if they haven’t already.”

The woman looked down at her datapad. “They’re still up there, but there’s nowhere to put a shuttle down. We’ll have to wait until the ion storm clears enough to beam them out.”

“That’s not good enough. We need to go now!” They reached the shuttle, Kirk barely having noticed the climb, he was so busy arguing with the rescue team. “We can put down a cable and harnesses. I know these shuttles are equipped with them.”

“And lightning will strike them the moment we let them down.”

As if to punctuate his words, the sky lit up with yellow white discharge nearly from horizon to horizon, its electric strands entrained into a hundred perfect squares. Squares! “They’ve got the weathersats back online! They can bleed off the extra energy and it will be safe to collect them.”

The Kelpian walked him to a seat and strapped him in. “It’s a risky operation.”

“I’ll ride the harness down. You all can stay on the shuttle where it’s safe.” He hadn’t meant to make the derision in his tone so obvious. Damn.

There were two other people on the shuttle, what looked like a pilot and a second medtech. The pilot called back into the cabin where Kirk, Turei, and Daly were being strapped in. “We should at least fly over, see how they’re doing.”

The Kelpian medtech turned away from Kirk to check out Daly’s leg. Kirk caught the attention of the woman who seemed to be in charge. “What about the other three. Lim, Saggda, and Petrucci. How are they?”

She checked her datapad. “They’re all together and in the green. They’ve been checking in every fifteen minutes per orders. We can fly over to assess whether it’s feasible to collect the group by the river before we come back for them.”

The shuttle took off. The Kelpian passed a device, possibly a tissue regenerator, to a round faced young man, who cut off the rest of Kirk’s uniform jacket and began running it over his shoulder. The warmth deep in his muscles was heaven, worth the faint stinging and pressure that accompanied it. Once the medtech left, Kirk rolled his shoulder, testing its strength and range of motion. It still ached, but he could make a fist and raise his arm over his head, so as far as he was concerned he was good to go.

*

There was another strike, much closer even than the last. The storm was ramping up, the wind enough to buffet even Spock so that he gripped the rock wall even tighter with his legs, his arm wrapped so tightly around McCoy that it hurt. The other arm was wrapped just as tightly around Novotny. Spock’s head was bowed, his eyes closed against the wind and rain, his face remarkably smooth, as though he were meditating. McCoy couldn’t see any of Pike from where he crouched except for one leg on the ledge side of the wall and the curve of his arm, wrapping around Novotny just below Spock’s, the hand jammed tight into a vertical crack in the stone.

When the next flash, blinding bright, filled his vision, he calmly, surprisingly calmly, accepted death—but instead, the light that burned itself onto his retinas came in the familiar net of near perfect squares that meant that the weathersats were directing the discharges to locations they deemed safe.

They would not be electrocuted tonight. Another gust threatened them, and McCoy held on tighter. His legs and arms were beginning to shake, a sign that soon they would no longer be strong enough to hold him to the wall. He felt like he should have fallen already, like this almost Zenlike state of detachment he found himself in was also making him stronger, or perhaps just better able to harness his strength. He hadn’t known he had it in him.

Cool, almost bluish light shone on them from above. A shuttle hovered above them, forcibly reminding him that shuttle propulsion relied on exotic particles and a truly strange relationship with gravity rather than by any more prosaic kind of flight. A rope, tied to an oblong mesh basket, with a man alongside, dropped toward them and he realized he was going to have to ride that thing out in the open air all the way up to the shuttle. The basket settled alongside McCoy first. He climbed into it as if he were half-dreaming. His arms and legs didn’t want to obey him, but the difficult to make out figure dangling by the basket helped maneuver him into place and buckled the restraints around him when his cramping fingers didn’t have the dexterity. He reached for Spock next, but instead of getting into the basket, the Vulcan shifted position and handed Novotny to McCoy and—the light played across his rescuer’s face for a split second—Kirk. How in the hell…? Kirk pulled Novotny into the basket, hand over hand, then tucked an arm around her once she was strapped in. Kirk gestured a thumbs up to the shuttle and it swung slightly away and began to retract the cable, pulling McCoy and Novotny toward it. Swinging out over open air, suspended in a black wire basket that all but disappeared in the darkness and rain was too much for McCoy. The spell he had been under broke, and his heart raced in his chest. 

He knew the trip up to the shuttle had been a mere sixty seconds or so, not sixty years, but it had seemed that long. He and Novotny collapsed to the floor of the shuttle as soon as they were pulled in, spent muscles shaking and unable to obey their commands. Kirk squeezed his shoulder once and was back out the rear hatch with the basket. 

*

Kirk rode the basket down a second time, keeping his eyes trained on Pike and Spock, huddled together on a fragile looking spire of limestone less than a meter above the massively swollen creek. His mind flicked, unbidden, to Sam and Frodo at the end of Lord of the Rings, though the context was completely different and the men didn’t resemble hobbits in the slightest, even if at some point both had kicked off their boots, the better to grip the rock with their feet. 

He pulled Pike off first without even asking, knowing that the Vulcan wouldn’t have allowed the Captain to wait alone while he was being strapped in. He didn’t expect Spock to pitch forward into the end of the basket as soon as Pike’s body wasn’t there to lean against. Only luck and quick reflexes on both his and Pike’s part kept him from bouncing off the metal and tumbling into the muddy torrent below. Pike laced one arm through the heavy wire of the basket and braced both feet against its rim, the other arm hooked up under Spock’s armpit. Kirk, for his part, had both arms locked tight around the heavier man’s chest. He freed one arm just long enough to snake a harness around SPock’s chest; there was no way either of them was going to be able to drag him the rest of the way into the basket. He signaled with a tug on the cable and they ascended, more slowly than he’d like, but after he had counted to eighty-five, hands reached to pull the three of them into the shuttle. Pike relinquished Spock’s arm and fell backwards into the metal basket until Patterson and Gao pulled him out. The Kelpian, whose name he had learned was Leri, laid Spock carefully out on the floor of the cabin.

“He’s just exhausted, I think,” Leri said on consulting his medscanner.

McCoy coughed from where he was strapped in nearby. “He’s only half-Vulcan,” he said. “Be sure to check his vitals against his records.”

“Thank you, Doctor,” Leri said. He scanned Spock again, looked at his medscanner, and frowned, then carried it over to McCoy and the other medtech, who seemed as nonplussed as he was. 

“Whatever it is, it doesn’t look life threatening,” McCoy pronounced.

The shuttle set down again. Kirk got up to follow the rescue team out, but was led firmly to the seat next to McCoy by Leri. “We’ve got this. You’re running on adrenaline and the longer you push yourself, the harder you’re going to come down.”

“I need to make sure my squad is okay,” he protested.

Pike turned in his seat to address him. “Don’t make me make it an order, Cadet.”

He desperately needed something to do. Something to think about. He could feel his mind crawling backward, pushed by the emptiness in his gut. He needed a problem to solve, something to immerse himself in before the crash he already knew was coming swallowed him whole. He needed a reason to keep himself together. “Do we know who sabotaged the satellites?” he asked for lack of anything better to think about.

“It was a cadet who washed out midway through last year. Psychological instability. She was a hell of a coder, apparently.”

“Apparently,” he said, his voice more breath than sound. Psychological instability. Pike glanced in his direction, probably without even realizing he had, and Kirk flashed him a grin he hoped looked at least superficially sincere.

Footsteps sounded on the rear hatch. He turned in his seat as much as the harness allowed. Saggda and Lim walked up together, intact and in Lim’s case, even smiling. Lim made sure Saggda was settled into a seat herself before returning to the hatch to escort Petrucci in. The two of them took seats, all of them looking good, despite being covered with mud and marked with scrapes and bruises.

They were safe. Everyone on his squad was safe. Jim lay his head back against the head rest and quietly, invisibly he hoped, fell to pieces.

*

All told, loss of life from former cadet Janice Lester’s revenge was twenty-six, twenty-four cadets and two officers concentrated in two squads, one of which had lost all ten members and one instructor, and one in which there had been only three survivors, an amphibious cadet and two squad mates she had rescued from drowning. She had retrieved all nine squad mates, one at a time, but all but the first and second had been too far gone to save.

Kirk found his need to lose himself in binge drinking, casual sex and illegal shenanigans thwarted by the draconian plebe rules that kept him chained to campus and lacking unscheduled time. He was going quietly stir crazy, he was sure of it—but he knew that if McCoy and Pike hadn’t both been breathing down his neck for the last week he’d probably have gotten expelled by now. He had put his frustration into a report that included a less than glowing analysis of Finnegan’s performance—he had turned it in before Pike had a chance to vet it, and had gained himself an enemy he probably didn’t need, but if that was the worst that happened he could count himself as getting off easy. He had been through worse before. What he hadn’t known was whether he could do it again. Whether he’d want to do it again after everything settled back down.

It hadn’t been fun, not by any stretch of the imagination. But he had done it, and he had to grudgingly admit he was good at it. Good enough to make him worth Starfleet’s effort, and maybe good enough to make Starfleet worth his.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is intended to be a basically self contained AOS canon compliant thing (I know I'm pushing the possibility that Spock met the other two before the Kobayashi Maru thing, but I didn't want to leave him out.)
> 
> I'm not saying I'll never revisit this time period in their lives...though I need to do a lot more research into the plebe year at West Point, since I'm drawing on it as I try to figure out how a semi-military exploration/protection outfit like Starfleet would train a bunch of independently minded, brilliant, culturally disparate people to trust each other with their lives. (It's going to be a hybrid thing, not exactly like the military academies and definitely not like regular college)


End file.
